Constitutive instrumentalism is the view that responsibility practices arise from and are justified by our being prosocial creatures who need responsibility practices to secure specific kinds of social goods. In particular, responsibility practices shape agency in ways that disposes adherence to norms that enable goods of shared cooperative life. The mechanics of everyday responsibility practices operate, in part, via costly signaling about the suitability of agents for coordination and cooperation under conditions of shared cooperative life. So, there are a range (...) of identifiable conditions where the ordinary operation of responsibility practices—and thus, the usual normative force of the practices—is disrupted. Even so, these conditions are not so widespread as to favor a more thoroughgoing abandonment of responsibility practices. (shrink)

The Bayesian brain hypothesis, predictive processing, and variational free energy minimisation are typically used to describe perceptual processes based on accurate generative models of the world. However, generative models need not be veridical representations of the environment. We suggest that they can be used to describe sensorimotor relationships relevant for behaviour rather than precise accounts of the world.

The way digital information technologies work and, more specifically, the possibilities for action that technological devices offer to us affect our processes of political belief formation. In particular, there seems to be a close connection between our digital affordances and the increase of the sort of polarization that threatens the proper functioning of democracy. In this paper, we analyze whether the type of polarization linked to the use of digital technologies, and which endangers the health of public deliberation, has to (...) do with the adoption of beliefs whose contents are increasingly extreme—extremism—or, on the contrary, has more to do with increasing our credence in the core beliefs of our political identity—radicalism. (shrink)

In this article I propose a resolution to the history issue for responsible agency, given a moderate revisionist approach to responsibility. Roughly, moderate revisionism is the view that a plausible and normatively adequate theory of responsibility will require principled departures from commonsense thinking. The history issue is whether morally responsible agency – that is, whether an agent is an apt target of our responsibility-characteristic practices and attitudes – is an essentially historical notion. Some have maintained that responsible agents must have (...) particular sorts of histories, others have argued that no such history is required. Resolution of this contentious issue is connected to a wide range of concerns, including the significance and culpability of different forms of manipulation, the plausibility of important incompatibilist criticisms of compatibilism, and of course, a satisfactory account of moral responsibility. As it turns out, history matters sometimes, but less frequently than we might think. (shrink)

En 1956, se introdujo el término de inteligencia artificial (IA) para referirse a una tecnología que es capaz de emular las operaciones cognoscitivas del ser humano mediante el uso de sistemas computacionales y programas informáticos, con el fin de ayudar a la toma de decisiones en distintas áreas de conocimiento.Sin embargo, se ha llegado a cuestionar si debe emplearse el calificativo de inteligencia a esos usos de la tecnología digital. También, se ha generado preocupación sobre sus implicaciones éticas, debido a (...) que la inteligencia artificial consiste en sistemas no autónomos que no son capaces de actos libres y responsables, lo cual exige que sean guiados por personas. Por tanto, el presente trabajo tiene como objeto presentar algunos fundamentos de la filosofía realista de santo Tomás de Aquino que nos permitan hacer una valoración de la inteligencia artificial. (shrink)

The Luck Problem has existed in one form or another since David Hume, at least. It is perhaps as old as Stoic objections to the Epicurean swerve. Although the general issue admits of different formulations with subtly different emphases, the characterization of it that will serve as my target focuses on “cross-worlds” luck, a kind of luck that arises when the decision-making of agents is indeterministic.

Explicitly fictional armchair reconstructions of the past are sometimes taken to be informative about philosophical issues. What appeal a counterfactual genealogy has depends on its speculative accuracy, that is, its accuracy in identifying relevant causal, functional, or explanatory particulars. However, even when speculatively accurate, counterfactual genealogies rarely secure more than proofs of possibility. For more ambitious deployments of genealogy – for example, efforts to show what properties the target concept in fact predicates – genealogies are hamstrung by the possibility of (...) predicative drift, or changes over time in what the concept predicates. Still, even when counterfactual genealogies fail to tell us about our current practices or concepts, they may identify appealing successors. Pettit's (2018 Pettit, Philip. 2018. The Birth of Ethics: Reconstructing the Role and Nature of Morality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.[Crossref], [Google Scholar]) innovative defense of moral realism and his employment of a counterfactual genealogy provides an illuminating instance of the promise and challenges facing accounts employing counterfactual genealogies. (shrink)

En la literatura jurídica existe un acuerdo generalizado en que los topes máximos de la pena establecidos la legislación son un límite infranqueable por los jueces. Sin embargo, al abordar el límite mínimo los desacuerdos comienzan a surgir. El objetivo del presente trabajo será el de defender que los mínimos penales, si bien son vinculantes para los jueces, pueden ser dejados de lado cuando las circunstancias particulares del caso lo ameriten. El método empleado será análisis conceptual, más precisamente, al contructivismo (...) interpretativista propuesto por Ronald Dworkin, aplicado al estudio de la jurisprudencia y la doctrina argentina. El resultado final será una justificación – apoyada en la concepción comunicativa del castigo – según la cual los límites mínimos pueden ser dejados de lado en casos concretos y excepcionales, como cuando la culpabilidad del acusado o la lesividad de su conducta se muestran desproporcionadas con el límite mínimo. De esta manera se busca dar respuesta a un problema que se encuentra presente en la práctica jurídica y, sobre todo, brindar herramientas argumentativas para que los operadores judiciales puedan resolver aquellos casos donde este límite se encuentre en discusión. (shrink)

I discuss experimental work by Nichols, and Nichols and Knobe, with respect to the philosophical problems of free will and moral responsibility. I mention some methodological concerns about the work, but focus principally on the philosophical implications of the work. The experimental results seem to show that in particular, concrete cases we are more willing to attribute responsibility than in cases described abstractly or in general terms. I argue that their results suggest a deep problem for traditional accounts of compatibilism, (...) and that they may cast some light on the literature surrounding Frankfurt cases. I also suggest a way in which mature philosophical convictions about free will may reflect a contingent process of refining and defending either of two competing strands of intuitions, and suggest that this may partly explain the persistence of philosophical debates about free will. (shrink)

Both legal and moral theorists have offered broadly “communicative” theories of criminal and moral responsibility. According to such accounts, we can understand the nature of responsibility by appealing to the idea that responsibility practices are in some fundamental sense expressive, discursive, or communicative. In this essay, I consider a variety of issues in connections with this family of views, including its relationship to free will, the theory of exemptions, and potential alternatives to the communicative model. Focusing on Michael McKenna’s Conversation (...) and Responsibility, I argue that communicative accounts, and the conversational model in particular, direct our attention to important and under-appreciated elements of our responsibility practices. However, rather than focusing on a model of conversation-as-address, as McKenna does, we do better to regard gossip as the paradigmatic conversational form that captures the main features of moral responsibility. (shrink)

El filósofo francés en su obra _Réduction et donation_ nos propone un nuevo principio –“_autant de réduction, autant de donation_”–, a partir del cual planteará una tercera reducción en el campo de la fenomenología. La pretensión de este artículo consiste en mostrar cómo este principio señala que la reducción, cada vez más radicalizada, no solo reduce en un sentido restrictivo, sino, más bien, abre o amplía el horizonte de la donación, puesto que permite penetrar cada vez más en el hecho (...) mismo de la donación como tal. De este modo, concluiremos que tras la reducción fenomenológica-transcendental y la reducción ontológicaexistencial se ejerce la reducción _a_ y _de_ la llamada, la cual subyace como el esquema fundamental de las dos reducciones anteriores. Esta será concebida como la estructura originaria de la donación. (shrink)

We review some results in the theory of non-relativistic quantum unstable systems. We account for the most important definitions of quantum resonances that we identify with unstable quantum systems. Then, we recall the properties and construction of Gamow states as vectors in some extensions of Hilbert spaces, called Rigged Hilbert Spaces. Gamow states account for the purely exponential decaying part of a resonance; the experimental exponential decay for long periods of time physically characterizes a resonance. We briefly discuss one of (...) the most usual models for resonances: the Friedrichs model. Using an algebraic formalism for states and observables, we show that Gamow states cannot be pure states or mixtures from a standard view point. We discuss some additional properties of Gamow states, such as the possibility of obtaining mean values of certain observables on Gamow states. A modification of the time evolution law for the linear space spanned by Gamow shows that some non-commuting observables on this space become commuting for large values of time. We apply Gamow states for a possible explanation of the Loschmidt echo. (shrink)

Although commitment is one of the attributes of family firms of continuing interest to researchers, they almost always study it from the perspective of the owning family. In the current work, we analyze the commitment of the non-family employees. We propose a model of commitment, with the aim of studying the implications that this variable may have for family businesses. We study both the aspects on the basis of the approaches of Meyer and Allen's three-component model of organizational commitment and (...) stewardship theory. Results show that the identification level of non-family employees positively and significantly influences the profitability and the survival or continuity of familyowned businesses. At the same time that their involvement level positively and significantly influences the survival or continuity of family-owned businesses. (shrink)

I examine the extent to which Dennett’s account in Freedom Evolves might be construed as revisionist about free will or should instead be understood as a more traditional kind of compatibilism. I also consider Dennett’s views about philosophical work on free agency and its relationship to scientific inquiry, and I argue that extant philosophical work is more relevant to scientific inquiry than Dennett’s remarks may suggest.

Political egalitarians tend to defend equal distributions of voting power at specific times, as in ‘one election, one vote’. Appealing as it is, the principle seems incompatible with distributing power proportionally to the stakes voters have at different elections, as in ‘one stake, one vote’. This article argues that the tension above stems from the temporal scope ascribed to political equality, as at specific moments of democratic decision-making instead of over entire lives. More specifically, ascribing a lifetime view to political (...) equality renders equality compatible with proportionality at different elections. I first show that storable votes differ from standard votes in their distinctive commitment to lifetime political equality. I then argue that storable voting schemes are compatible with three key reasons to value political equality: equal consideration of interests, relational equality, and non-domination. Finally, storable votes are also consistent with proportionality at specific times. I conclude that the neglected idea of lifetime political equality can, through storable votes, deliver proportionality without inequality. (shrink)

According to a common belief concerning the Mach-Boltzmann debate on atoms, the new experiments performed in microphysics at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries confirmed Boltzmann’s atomic hypothesis and disproved Mach’s anti-atomic view. This paper intends to show that this belief is partially unjustified. Mach’s view on atoms consists in fact of different kinds of arguments. While the new experiments in microphysics refute indeed his scientific arguments against the atomic hypothesis, his epistemological arguments are unaffected. In this regard, (...) Mach’s epistemological approach remains relevant for today’s discussion on the status of the notion of atom. (shrink)

Este libro cuenta la historia de pensamiento filosófico y científico español e hispanoamericano desarrollado a lo largo del recién pasado siglo XX. Su propósito es ser un companion, una guía o compañero, que introduzca y oriente en esta materia de una manera eficaz, atractiva e interesante. La primera de sus cuatro partes se ocupa de la llamada Edad de Plata de la cultura española, que comienza en los últimos años del siglo XIX y termina con el estallido de la Guerra (...) Civil. La segunda abarca el cuarto de siglo comprendido entre el principio de la Guerra Civil y la década de los sesenta, el periodo que corresponde a la dictadura franquista y en el que resulta obligado contemplar separadamente el pensamiento de la España residente en el territorio nacional y en el exilio. La tercera parte se ocupa del estudio de los últimos cuarenta años del siglo XX, cuyas dos primeras décadas, fueron revolucionarias y rupturitas. La cuarta y última parte contiene una historia sintética del pensamiento hispanoamericano del siglo XX, escrita por filósofos hispanoamericanos interesados en comprender la historia intelectual de sus respectivos países. Hemos querido de esta forma renovar la memoria y profundizar en el recuerdo de que buena parte de los herederos culturales de la Edad de Plata española fueron exiliados en esos países para devenir ciudadanos suyos. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a novel interpretation of Shepherd's notion of selfhood. In distinction to Deborah Boyle's interpretation, I contend that Shepherd differentiates between the mind and the self. The latter, for Shepherd, is an effect arising from causal interactions between mind and body—specifically those interactions that give rise to our present stream of consciousness, our memories, and that can unite these two. Thus, the body plays a constitutive role in the formation of the self. The upshot of (...) this interpretation is that it can dissolve the problem of individuating mind that Boyle identifies. Briefly, the problem consists in Shepherd seemingly individuating minds in terms of their associated bodies and bodies in terms of the minds they are united with. My interpretation, however, allows to see that Shepherd neither wants nor needs to individuate the mind in isolation of the body and to read the passages, in which the problem seems to arise, as being about what makes living beings individual—with mind and body both playing a crucial role in this context. (shrink)

El formalismo no es la única dolencia que aqueja al Derecho o, mejor, a quienes tienen la función de interpretarlo y aplicarlo. Pero es quizás la más perniciosa en los países latinos por el carácter de enfermedad endémica que ha adquirido en nuestra cultura jurídica. Es cierto, por otro lado, que no todo lo que se llama a veces "formalismo" es igualmente rechazable; e incluso hay un formalismo -un significado de esa expresión- que no lo es en absoluto. El Derecho (...) es, en buena medida, un fenómeno de autoridad; en el mismo, las razones formales tienen una importancia fundamental, lo que no ocurre, por ejemplo, en la moral. Por eso, los jueces no deben dialogar, como a veces se dice, de tú a tú con la Constitución y con las leyes, sino que deben reconocer la autoridad de la una y de las otras; en el caso del juez constitucional, el sometimiento a la Constitución debe ir unido a la deferencia hacia el legislador como principio interpretativo fundamental. Si las cosas no fueran así, no habría Estado de Derecho, simplemente porque el imperio de la ley habría pasado a ser imperio o gobierno de los jueces. (shrink)

AI (ethics) initiatives are essential in bringing about fairer, safer, and more trustworthy AI systems. Yet, they also come with various drawbacks, including a lack of effective governance mechanisms, window-dressing, and ‘ethics shopping.’ To address those concerns, hard laws are necessary, and more and more countries are moving in this direction. Two of the most notable recent legislations include the Biden Administration’s Executive Order (EO) on AI and the E.U.’s AI Act (AIA). While several scholarly articles have evaluated the strengths (...) and weaknesses of the AIA and proposed reform measures that could help strengthen the Act, only a couple of papers do the same for the EO or compare the two regulatory initiatives. The following sections try to close this research gap by providing an in-depth comparative analysis of the EO and AIA. They offer, in particular, a critical computer-ethical evaluation of the EO’s and AIA’s pros and cons and similarities and differences and discuss possible ways to improve both legislations. (shrink)

Proponents of the philosophy of liberation generally counsel that various forms of liberation in at least the Americas requires that we should fight Eurocentrism and resist the ontology and conceptual framework of Europe. However, most of the work done in this tradition relies heavily on the terminology and theoretical apparatus of various strands of European philosophy. The apparent disconnect between the aims and methods (or if you like, the theory and practice) has given rise to a criticism I call The (...) Eurocentrism Problem. I argue that the Eurocentrism Problem has not received an adequate reply, and that it reflects a number of underlying flaws in the philosophical program of the philosophy of liberation. These problems can largely be avoided if we significantly recast the philosophy of liberation, eliminating its reliance on the conceptual foundations provided by Levinas, Heidegger, and so on. (shrink)

Focusing on the recent work of Michael Bratman as emblematic of several important developments in the philosophy of action, I raise four questions that engage with a set of interlocking concerns about systemic functionalism in the philosophy of action. These questions are: (i) Are individual and institutional intentions the same kind of thing? (ii) Can the risk of proliferation of systemic functional explanations be managed? (iii) Is there an appealing basis for the apparent methodological individualism in our theories of action (...) and agency? and (iv) Why not, instead, pursue a methodologically anti-individualist and ecological approach to action and agency? The latter alternative, I suggest, offers a promising way to retain many of the core insights of the Bratmanian project while avoiding the difficulties inherent to some of the methodological presumptions of some strands of contemporary philosophy of action. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende mostrar cómo la descripción fenomenológica que el filósofo francés Jean-Luc Marion hace del fenómeno saturado encaja con precisión en la cristología característica del cuarto Evangelio. A partir del pensamiento de este autor, concluiremos que Jesucristo, como manifestación visible del Dios invisible, concentra en sí las cuatro paradojas fenoménicas, apareciendo también según el relato joánico como una “paradoja de paradojas” o como un “fenómeno saturado por excelencia”.

En el célebre libro inicial de la Política Aristóteles aborda diferentes temas entre los que se destaca el estudio de la economía y la crematística (Pol. A 8-11). Un elemento clave de su argumento consiste en distinguir en primer lugar entre las dos disciplinas y, a continuación, entre dos tipos diversos de crematística (crematística1 y crematística2). El eje sobre el que se asienta su argumento para discriminar entre ellas consiste en señalar que la crematística1 persigue la riqueza genuina (o verdadera, (...) ἀληθινὸς πλοῦτος, Pol. A 8, 1256b30-1), mientras que la crematística2 va más allá de los límites razonables al no tener un fin delimitado en la persecución de los bienes materiales. Nuestra investigación pretende mostrar que la justificación última de la riqueza verdadera se encuentra en la definición de ciudad que fue desarrollada en los capítulos iniciales (Pol. A 1-2). De este modo, pretendemos defender como hipótesis general que Aristóteles utiliza las definiciones propuestas en los tramos iniciales del libro como auténticos principios explicativos y, así, que todo el argumento se encuentra orquestado de acuerdo con dichas asunciones. (shrink)

Movements for environmental justice ought to engage the powerful mechanisms of change deployed in a Transitional Justice context. There is reason for restraint, however, in calling upon radically disruptive procedures to immediately amend the basic structure of society. I propose a modest expansion of the purview of Transitional Justice to recognize a class of environmental harms severe enough to trigger transitional measures. This class of harms is ecocide as social death, which I define as deliberate, state-sponsored environmental destruction resulting in (...) the annihilation of ways of life intimately connected to the natural world. The article then considers potential criticisms of this framework: its foundation in liberal political theory, its anthropocentrism, and its exclusion of global environmental harms. Despite being anthropocentric, the model offers a means of politically and legally representing the value of the natural world beyond its role as a stock of resources for human consumption. I defend an expressly liberal approach to Transitional Justice that emphasizes the core of the liberal social contract—respect for diversity. (shrink)

In this talk I consider two problems for conceptual atomism. Conceptual atomism can be defended against the criticism that it seems to contend that all concepts are simply innate (even technical concepts to pre-technological humanoids) by specifying the innateness thesis as one of mechanisms of hooking up mental representations (concepts as language of thought types) to properties in the world (§1). This theory faces a problem with non-referring expressions/concepts, it seems. Conceptual atomism can, however, deal with non-referring expressions/concepts (§2). Hooking (...) up concepts with properties raises, further on, broader metaphysical problems of making concepts correspond to (natural) properties. These questions are much harder to answer (§3). (shrink)

Within the philosophy of logic there has been an old debate about strengths and weaknesses of so-called “deviant” logics, as compared to standard logic (i.e. First Order Logic with Identity). With the development of a multitude of many-valued and modal logical systems and the various ways they can be employed in various fields of philosophy, linguistics and computer science, former “deviant” logics have become well accepted. Nowadays we seem to have a new and almost contrary debate about whether there is (...) any universal logic at all or only a multitude of systems: logical pluralism. But what does logical pluralism claim? In this paper one prominent version of logical pluralism is the main target of further questions. (shrink)

Odio, violencia y emancipación son, sin duda, categorías hetero-géneas, que remiten a esferas nítidamente diferenciadas de la vida humana. Así, la primera —el odio— ha tendido tradicionalmente a ser recluida en la esfera de lo privado, esto es, a ser considerada como un sentimiento estrictamente individual. En consecuencia, se interpretaba que de su estudio debían ocuparse determinadas disciplinas (en especial la psicología, aunque no sólo ella), especializadas en el conocimiento de los diversos aspectos de la individualidad. Ahora bien, en los (...) últimos años se ha hecho evidente que la generalización del odio (junto con alguna otra categoría complemen-taria, como es el miedo) no puede seguir siendo analizada de forma tan restrictiva. Se odia y se teme demasiado (y a demasiadas cosas) como para seguir pensando que tales sentimientos son asunto de cada cual. Por tanto, el odio, como cualquier otro "sentimiento social", ha de ser puesto en conexión con esos otros vectores absolutamente básicos de la vida en común que son la violencia y la (expectativa de) emancipación. La insistencia en la conexión resulta particularmente importante para diferenciar, con la mayor nitidez posible, el plantea-miento seguido en estas páginas y el defendido por quienes consideran la violencia como una constante de carácter histórico-antropológico, presente desde siempre en la especie humana y que le lleva de modo inexorable a resolver sus conflictos por medios violentos. Se trata, en definitiva, de proponer una alternativa a la tesis conservadora que se resiste a aceptar que lo existente pueda dejar de ser como ha sido hasta ahora, esto es, a cualquier forma de emancipación. O de vida en común mínimamente buena. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze a way of valuing positively something which rarely has been taking into account in the literature: to value positively something because it could be valued positively by someone else. The main features of that way of valuing something are really very suggesting. Here, we would not have instrumental valuations, nor valuations directly sensitive to intrinsic values either. However, there would be cases in which valuations made in that way would make us able to detect things (...) that can be valued in an inconditional way. When we imagine or conceive what could be value positively, our motivational structures face us with something that is valued without evaluative conditions and, therefore, with something that is a good candidate to have an intrinsic value. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Aufsatz ist ein Porträt von Martha C. Nussbaum, das die enorme Vielfalt ihres wissenschaftlichen Werks und ihrer Veröffentlichungen als Public Intellectual beleuchtet. Nussbaums Denken, das sich auch als Reaktion auf schmerzhafte Erfahrungen und als Widerstand gegen ihre soziale und kulturelle Herkunft interpretieren lässt, kann als feministisch, moralistisch, egalitaristisch und anti-elitär charakterisiert werden. Der vorliegende Text thematisiert Nussbaums Biografie, ihren intellektuellen Werdegang, und fokussiert auf folgende Themen: ihre Faszination für die antike Philosophie, ihren Fähigkeiten-Ansatz, ihren feministischen Liberalismus, ihre Philosophie (...) der Emotionen und ihre Rolle als „öffentliche Intellektuelle“. (shrink)

This article examines the Kantian thesis of the a priori nature of our knowledge of space. Because it makes the representation of objects possible as external to us and all others, and consequently, as distinct and individualized, space (whatever its structure may be) claims the status as necessary condition and as apriori possibility of all knowledge. However, in the light of various physical, psychological and philosophical considerations, it seems that the particular structure allocated by Kant to space (i.e. uniqueness, infinity, (...) continuity, homogeneity, isotropy, Euclidean character and three-dimensional character) is neither necessary nor a priori but is rather contingent and dependent on experience. For this reason a pragmatist relativization of the transcendental approach appears to be necessary: the structure of space which makes knowledge possible is not apriori in an absolute sense, but rather, it is determined within the context of a certain practice, which is characterized by a certain mode of interaction with the environment and reveals particular empirical constraints to which this spatial structure must fit. (shrink)

El artículo presenta la vertiente práctica del escepticismo alemán de Odo Marquard y Wilhem Weischedel en tres momentos: inicio con la propuesta de Marquard, quien lo define como la sensibilidad para lo usual, en vez de un sistema de criterios veritativos; prosigo con la Ética Escéptica de Weischedel, mostrando que la cuestionabilidad radical de la realidad abre un espacio para que el escéptico pueda formular siempre una pregunta; y termino mostrando que, a partir de Weischedel y Marquard, la despedida se (...) erige como la actitud fundamental del escepticismo práctico. (shrink)

How account for the intuitive difference between simply knowing a necessary proposition, and knowing that it is a necessary truth? In the paper it will be shown that two-dimensional semantics does not do the job in an adequate way. A solution is provided which is based on Hintikka's worldlines. Assuming a slight extension of the syntax, modal epistemic logic can thus deal with classical puzzles like knowledge of identities.