I address three topics. First, I argue that the issue of corporate moral responsibility is an important one for business ethics.Second, I examine a core argument for the claim that the corporate organization is a separate moral agent and show it is based on anunnoticed but elementary mistake deriving from the fallacy of division. Third, I examine the assumptions collectivists make about whatit means to say that organizations act and that they act intentionally and show that these assumptions are mistaken (...) in their failure to understand the nature of intentional causality and of “as-if” intentionality. In exposing these mistakes I set out my own view in the form oftwo theses, the first of which states that individual members of an organization are always causally responsible for any corporate act,and the second of which states that attributions of intentions to corporations are always either descriptive or prescriptive attributionsof “as if” intentionality. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of who should be trusted as an expert and when, particularly in the context of public deliberation. Trust in experts is crucial in making decisions about public policies that involve complex information beyond the expertise of most people. However, fruitful deliberation also requires being able to resist misinformation campaigns, no matter how widespread these might be; being able, in general, to evaluate the evidence at our disposal and form our own opinions. The purpose of this (...) paper is to reflect on this apparent tension between epistemic deference and epistemic independence. The paper has two goals. First, it aims at providing a more nuanced understanding of the question of who should be trusted as an expert by examining cases in which seemingly factual claims are made in public settings by experts. Second, it emphasizes the need to pay attention to the conditions under which we actually trust each other. We suggest that fostering trust in science may be better approached by modifying the conditions under which scientific dialogue takes place, rather than trying to convince the public to trust experts, or blaming them for not doing so. (shrink)

Commercial genetic testing offered over the internet, known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), currently is under ethical attack. A common critique aims at the limited validation of the tests as well as the risk of psycho-social stress or adaption of incorrect behavior by users triggered by misleading health information. Here, we examine in detail the specific role of advertising communication of DTC GT companies from a medical ethical perspective. Our argumentative analysis departs from the starting point that DTC GT (...) operates at the intersection of two different contexts: medicine on the one hand and the market on the other. Both fields differ strongly with regard to their standards of communication practices and the underlying normative assumptions regarding autonomy and responsibility. Following a short review of the ethical contexts of medical and commercial communication, we provide case examples for persuasive messages of DTC GT websites and briefly analyze their design with a multi-modal approach to illustrate some of their problematic implications. We observe three main aspects in DTC GT advertising communication: (1) the use of material suggesting medical professional legitimacy as a trust-establishing tool, (2) the suggestion of empowerment as a benefit of using DTC GT services and (3) the narrative of responsibility as a persuasive appeal to a moral self-conception. While strengthening and respecting the autonomy of a patient is the focus in medical communication, specifically genetic counselling, persuasive communication is the normal mode in marketing of consumer goods, presuming an autonomous, rational, independent consumer. This creates tension in the context of DTC GT regarding the expectation and normative assessment of communication strategies. Our analysis can even the ground for a better understanding of ethical problems associated with intersections of medical and commercial communication and point to perspectives of analysis of DTC GT advertising. (shrink)

Unser aller Alltag ist in der Zwischenzeit stark von den Dienstleistungen und Plattformen der Technologiekonzerne durchdrungen. In der politischen Kommunikation sind Twitter, Facebook, Instagram und Konsorten nicht mehr wegzudenken. Die veränderten Bedingungen, unter denen politische Kommunikation stattfindet, haben nicht zu einer Machtnivellierung, sondern vielmehr zu einer verschiebung geführt. Politische Kommunikation ist für uns unentbehrlich, um unsere politischen Meinungen zu bilden, unsere Positionen zu artikulieren und politische Fragen zu diskutieren. Daraus ergeben sich zwei zentrale Fragen für die Politische Bildung: Welche Fähigkeiten (...) benötigen autonome und medienkundige Bürger*innen? Und wie erlernen wir diese Fähigkeiten? Dieser Beitrag skizziert eine mögliche Antwort darauf. (shrink)

We describe the Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. We then identify four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth (...) century, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition is superior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is commonly characterized as the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. Little has been said, however, on how best to construe these representational devices—in other words, on what conceptual engineering should be all about. This paper tackles this problem with a basic strategy: First, by presenting a taxonomy of the different possible subject matters for conceptual engineering; then, by comparatively assessing them and selecting the most conducive one with a view to making conceptual engineering an actionable (...) method, that is, a method that can be applied effectively and consistently to specific case studies. The outcome is that conceptual engineering should be all about concepts on pain of pragmatic inconsistencies otherwise. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated the mental representation of spatial and nonspatial two-dimensional problems. The experiments were designed to contrast opposite predictions of the model theory of reasoning and the formal rules of inference theories. Half of the problems required more inferential steps but only one model, whereas the other half required fewer inferential steps but two models. According to the inference rules, theory problems that require more inferential steps should be harder, whereas the model-based theory predicts that problems that require two (...) models should be harder. In Experiments 1a and 1b we measured the problem solving time and the percentage of errors. In Experiments 2a and 2b the problems were presented segmented in two different displays. We measured the comprehension time for each display, the question answering times, and the percentage of errors. The results of all experiments supported the model theory predictions in both spatial and nonspatial domains. (shrink)

This article describes Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth-century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. Four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century are then identified, (...) including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition issuperior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism. (shrink)

In _A Treatise of Human Nature_, Hume proposes a new philosophical method. This method results from integrating an empirically founded skepticism with an innovative study of the epistemic role of emotions. This combination of skepticism, empiricism, and moral psychology aims to establish a virtuous way of doing philosophy based on the regulation of our epistemic emotions. In this paper, I present the operating principles of this virtuous way of doing philosophy. The paper has three parts. I firstly claim that four (...) principles compose Hume’s philosophical methodology. I contend that the moderation of curiosity plays the central role among them. Secondly, I claim that that is the case because of the pernicious effects resulting when this passion becomes excessive and misplaced. Finally, I show the role of curiosity’s moderation in the Conclusion of Book 1 of the _Treatise_, to substantiate the claim that the crisis Hume there depicts illustrates his virtuous way of doing philosophy. (shrink)

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing has been available for several years now, with varying degrees of regulation across different countries. Despite a restrictive legal framework it is possible for consumers to order genetic tests from companies located in other countries. However, German laypeople’s awareness and perceptions of DTC GT services is still unexplored. We conducted seven focus groups with German laypeople to explore their perceptions of and attitudes towards commercial genetic testing and its ethical implications. Participants were critical towards DTC GT. Criticism (...) was directed at health-related, predictive testing, while lifestyle tests were accepted and even welcomed to some extent. Participants expressed strong reservations regarding commercial provision of genetic diagnostics and expressed a lack of trust in respective companies. They preferred non-commercial distribution within the public healthcare system. Participants also expressed high expectations of physicians’ abilities to interpret information obtained via DTC GT companies and provide counseling. Legal restrictions on commercial distribution of genetic tests were opposed, with participants arguing that it should be available to consumers. DTC GT companies are not perceived as trustworthy when compared to the public healthcare system and its professional ethical standards and practices. Laypeople rated general consumer autonomy higher than their own concerns, thus recommending against strong legal regulation. We conclude that medicine’s trustworthiness may be negatively affected if commercial provision is not visibly opposed by the medical professions, while DTC GT companies may gain in trustworthiness if they adapt to standards and practices upheld in medicine. (shrink)

En la conquista, colonización y evangelización de las Indias se dio una estrecha colaboración y alianza Iglesia-Estado, amalgama que reforzaba a ambas instituciones, aunque siempre bajo el control estatal, supervisada y coordinada por el Consejo de Indias. Las relaciones Iglesia-Estado en América pasaron por diversas modalidades: Patronato, Vicariato y Regalismo. En el siglo XVI rige el Patronato, basado en las concesiones Pontificias que ponía en manos de la Corona española el ‘cuidado’ sobre la Iglesia americana. Desde fines del XVI, religiosos (...) y juristas españoles elaboraron la teoría del Vicariato, según la cual los reyes, en virtud de la donación papal, eran Vicarios de la Santa Sede en las Indias y adquirían competencias en materia de disciplina eclesiástica. En el siglo XVIII el Regalismo asume ambas posiciones y las convierte en jurisdicción civil al considerar que los derechos esenciales del Patronato y el Vicariato no se basan en concesiones papales sino que son prerrogativas inherentes a la Corona, regalías o atributos del poder real. (shrink)

Stephen May (2011) holds that language rights have been insufficiently recognized, or just rejected as problematic, in human rights theory and practice. Defending the “human rights approach to language rights”, he claims that language rights should be accorded the status of fundamental human rights, recognized as such by states and international organizations. This article argues that the notion of language rights is far from clear. According to May, one key reason for rejecting the claim that language rights should be considered (...) as human rights is the widespread belief that language rights are collective rights. In order to address this kind of objection, the collective character attributed to language rights must be carefully assessed, distinguishing two different views of what a collective right is. (shrink)

En este trabajo se ofrece una introducción a esa área de investigación filosófica de la mente. Se abordarán, en primer lugar, algunos aspectos de su evolución histórica como disciplina diferenciada. En segundo lugar, se describirán las principales opciones existentes a la hora de conceptualizar las relaciones de lo mental con el mundo estudiado por las ciencias naturales. Se precisarán también algunos de los conceptos más recurrentes en la actual filosofía de la mente, proporcionándose a continuación una panorámica general de los (...) autores más representativos en este terreno. Por último, se comentan varios grupos importantes de problemas abiertos. La actual filosofía de la mente nos mostraría, sobre todo, una nueva forma de hacer filosofía que pone constantemente en práctica la inexistencia de fronteras claramente definidas entre filosofía y ciencia. (shrink)

Discussions about physicalism, reduction, special sciences, the layered image of reality, multiple realizability, emergence, downward causation, etc., typically make the ontological presupposition that there is no room for new properties in the physical world. The domain of physical properties would thus have been established once and for all. It is my purpose in this paper to explore the alternative hypothesis that there can be, and that in fact there are, new physical properties. In the first section, I propose a brief (...) analysis of the notions of property, physical property, and new physical property. In the second section, I present four general situations in which it would be plausible to speak of the existence of new physical properties. All of this is used to evaluate the content and scope of the hypothesis of physical novelty. Lastly, I examine certain interesting consequences of such a physical novelty in relation to some of the above mentioned topics. (shrink)

Existen tres grandes estrategias para intentar combinar realismo y antirrealismo: una distinción de niveles, una distinción de aspectos y una distinción de partes. En el trabajo se analizan estas tres estrategias. La primera de ellas ha sido desarrollada por numerosos autores. Comentamos en detalle los planteamientos recientes de José Zalabardo a propósito de ciertas tesis de John McDowell, Crispin Wright y Wittgenstein. Esta estrategia plantea graves dificultades. La segunda estrategia parece poder escapar a ellas. Sin embargo, no puede ser adoptada (...) en un sentido máximamente general. Proponemos una combinación basada en la tercera estrategia. Realismo y antirrealismo podrían combinarse de una manera muy natural cuando son adoptados en un sentido local. (shrink)

There are very few analyses of the structure of points of view. However, we can identify two general approaches. One of them assumes as a paradigm the structure of propositional attitudes. Here, points of view are understood as having an internal structure similar to the one we can find in propositional attitudes. The other approach is based on the notions of location and access. Here, the internal structure of points of view is not directly addressed. The features that are emphasised (...) are related with the role that points of view are intended to have. Points of view would be ways of having access to the world, and to ourselves, from certain emplacements. The paper has three parts. In the first one, we present these two approaches and some interesting developments inside each one of them. In the second one, we examine more closely the relationships between the two approaches. In the third part of the paper, we defend the non-reducible relational nature and modal character of points of view obtaining some conclusions. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar, transcribir y contextualizar el texto de las Comunicaciones del obispo Toral, el primer Prelado de Yucatán. Esta es la primera edición completa de este documento importante e interesante para el estudio de la introducción de la Iglesia en América.

Acercándonos a los Santos Padres y dejándonos llevar por ellos queremos en estas páginas reflexionar sobre el ministerio eclesiástico, atendiendo de manera sencilla al pensamiento y a las palabras de los Padres en tanto que recogen el pensar y sobre todo el sentir de las comunidades cristianas de su tiempo. En estas primeras iglesias el ministerio se comprende desde el servicio como entrega confiada y generosa al Padre, y entienden que en Cristo y sólo en Él este servicio alcanza su (...) plenitud. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Lonely students typically underperform academically. According to several studies, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important risk factor for increases in loneliness, as the contact restrictions and the switch to mainly online classes potentially burden the students. The previously familiar academic environment, as well as the exchange with peers and lecturers on site, were no longer made available. In our cross-sectional study, we examine factors that could potentially counteract the development of higher education student loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic from a (...) social network perspective. During the semester, N = 283 students from across all institutional faculties of a German comprehensive university took part in an online survey. We surveyed their social and emotional experiences of loneliness, their self-reported digital information-sharing behavior, and their current egocentric networks. Here, we distinguished between close online contacts and close offline contacts. In addition, we derived the interconnectedness and heterogeneity of students’ contacts. To obtain the latter, we used a novel two-step method combining t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding and cluster analysis. We explored the associations of the aforementioned predictors on social and emotional loneliness separately using two hierarchical multiple linear regression models. Our results suggest that social loneliness is strongly related to digital information-sharing behavior and the network structure of close contacts. In particular, high information-sharing behavior, high number of close contacts, a highly interconnected network, and a homogeneous structure of close contacts were associated with low social loneliness. Emotional loneliness, on the other hand, was mainly related to network homogeneity, in the sense that students with homogeneous close contacts networks experienced low emotional loneliness. Overall, our study highlights the central role of students’ close social network on feelings of loneliness in the context of COVID-19 restrictions. Limitations and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Government action has advantages, which explains the central role of states in political theory. However, taking states for granted limits the ability to critique the status quo and consider alternatives. The rejection of domination by anarchists and their vision of a society free of domination can be a productive starting point for critical reflection on statehood. Drawing on works by the philosophical anarchists Robert Paul Wolff and A. John Simmons, as well as Joseph Raz, this study presents a compelling anarchist (...) challenge to the state. This demonstrates that state action can only be legitimised if it enables us to lead a self-determined and emancipated life. (shrink)

We show that recurrence conditions do not yield invariant Borel probability measures in the descriptive set-theoretic milieu, in the strong sense that if a Borel action of a locally compact Polish group on a standard Borel space satisfies such a condition but does not have an orbit supporting an invariant Borel probability measure, then there is an invariant Borel set on which the action satisfies the condition but does not have an invariant Borel probability measure.

El autor propone la elaboración de una nueva racionalidad jurídica-educativa que integre la perspectiva de género en la educación jurídica y no en la educación legal, señalando que los desarrollos en esta área en Latinoamérica no han sido suficientes, debido a la compartimentación y fragmentación en los enfoques cognitivos. Postula por ello una deconstrucción discursiva, metodológica y práctica que pueda constituir una interpelación de tal profundidad que obligue a una mirada global sobre la matriz civilizatoria.

Properly speaking, the corporation, considered as an entity distinct from its members, cannot be morally responsible for wrongful corporate acts. Setting aside (in this abstract) acts brought about through negligence or omissions, we may say that moral responsibility for an act attaches to that agent (or agents) in whom the act "originates" in this sense: (1) the agent formed the (mental) intention or plan to bring about that act (possibly with the help of others) and (2) the act was intentionally (...) brought about through bodily movements over which that agent had direct control (i.e. the kind of direct mental control that I have over the body I refer to as "my" body) and through which the agent carried out his (mental) intention or plan. Corporate acts do not thus originate in some corporate entity distinct from its members because the corporation has neither a mind to form intentions nor a body it directly controls: it lacks the proper mind/body unity. Instead, corporate acts originate in individual autonomous human beings who make up the corporation and who intentionally bring about corporate acts through their own bodily movements. Such human individuals, and not "the corporation," are morally responsible for corporate acts. Moreover, to say that an entity is "morally responsible" for a wrongful act is to say that the entity is liable to blame and punishment. But it is not possible to impose blame and punishment on a corporation without inflicting it on corporate members. Thus, to say that a corporation (as an entity distinct from its members) is "morally responsible" for a wrongful corporate act is to imply that a (possibly innocent) corporate member legitimately may be punished for something for which another entity was morally responsible. This violates the moral principles that underlie blame and punishment. To hold that the corporation can be morally responsible for its acts is to adopt a dangerous organicism. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht von der neophänomenologisch inspirierten These aus, dass uns das Coronavirus aus einem existenzvergessenen Relativismus gerissen hat. Im Angesicht einer Bedrohung für Leib und Leben brach sich im Frühjahr 2020 schnell die kollektive Einsicht von systemrelevanten Berufsgruppen und Versorgungsinfrastrukturen Bahn. Die drohende Ansteckung mit SARS-CoV-2 ließ die allermeisten Menschen erkennen, dass es offenkundig spezifische Güter und Dienstleistungen gibt, die auf eigenartig seinsverstetigende Weise einen Wert in sich tragen. Diese plötzliche Einsicht in die existenzielle Eigenlogik gesellschaftlicher Daseinsvorsorge kollidiert (...) jedoch grundlegend mit einem werttheoretischen Relativismus, wie er von den vorherrschenden Denkrichtungen der Wirtschaftswissenschaft vertreten wird. Ebenjene Diskrepanz nimmt der vorliegende Aufsatz in den Blick und entwickelt ein neophänomenologisches Verständnis für diese eigenartige Abteilung der Produktwelt, eine Abteilung, für welche das Beatmungsgerät gewissermaßen zum Symbol geworden ist und die ich mit dem Terminus der ‚existenziellen Güter‘ auf den Begriff bringen möchte. Zu diesem Zweck wird gezeigt, dass die seit dem Frühjahr 2020 entstandene Situation vor dem Hintergrund eines entfremdeten menschlichen Selbstverständnisses verstanden werden kann. Letzteres besteht in einer Art existenzvergessenem Relativismus, welcher anhand der Studien von Hermann Schmitz bis in die Bewusstseinsphilosophie um 1800 zurückverfolgt werden kann. Mit Hilfe seines begrifflichen Instrumentariums der Neuen Phänomenologie diagnostiziert Schmitz in der Frühromantik des deutschen Idealismus ein entfremdetes Verständnis von Subjektivität, welches eine enorme, bis heute anhaltende Wirkmächtigkeit entfaltet hat. Diesem Gedanken folgend wird der Einfluss rekonstruiert, den dieses menschliche Selbstverständnis auf die wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Theoriebildung genommen hat. Es setzte sich, so meine Kernthese, in der Subjektkonzeption der neoklassischen Grenznutzentheorie um 1870 fort, wirkte von dort bis in die zeitgenössische Gesundheitsökonomik und widerfährt uns schließlich in Gestalt einer drohenden Versorgungskrise im Gesundheitswesen. Das durch das Coronavirus ausgelöste Krisenszenario der vergangenen Monate gleicht aus dieser Perspektive dem Erwachen aus einem relativistischen Traum abstrakter Nutzenmaximierung und Effizienzsteigerung. Das abschließend entwickelte Verständnis existenzieller Güter soll dazu beitragen, den darin manifest gewordenen Entfremdungsprozess zu überwinden. (shrink)

Al mismo tiempo que se introduce la figura de J. J. Thomson, y cómo llegó al descubrimiento del electrón, entendido éste como partícula elemental, se estudian las aportaciones de otros científicos (como, entre otros, Faraday, Maxwell, Crookes, Helmholtz o Stoney) a la identificación de una carga eléctrica básica. Finalmente, se aborda la cuestión de la recepción del trabajo de Thomson.

En este ensayo se hace una valoración de la situación actual de la estética y se estudia cuál es la aportación del pensamiento del filósofo español X. Zubiri a la misma. Para ello se reconstruye a grandes rasgos la historia del pensamiento estético hasta el momento actual de modo que sean claramente perceptibles las aportaciones a la estética de la propuesta del pensador español, a la vez que las posibilidades que abre para un desarrollo ulterior de esta disciplina. Para mostrar (...) las aportaciones a la estética de Zubiri se exponen las características fundamentales de su pensamiento en las que destaca su raigambre estrictamente metafísica. Esta raigambre metafísica permite evitar un reduccionismo hermenéutico de la estética tal y como ocurre según el autor en muchas propuestas actuales. Por otro lado, la propuesta zubiriana de incardinar lo estético en una facultad sustantiva como es el sentimiento afectante, permite evitar el intelectualismo y rescatar la autonomía de la dimensión estética de la realidad sin reducirla al bien ni el ser neutro. La propuesta es una alternativa a la teoría de Max Scheler que, no obstante, vuelve a hacerse cargo de la estructura transcendental de la realidad como ocurría en la gran tradición metafísica occidental. (shrink)

v. 1. Hermenéutica, filosofía, geneología.