A rational moral code must satisfy the condition of completeness. This same condition applies to a set of moral rights, where it takes the form of requiring that all the rights in that set be compossible: that their respective correlatively entailed duties be jointly fulfillable. Such joint fulfillability is guaranteed only by a set of fully differentiated individual domains. And if moral rights are to play any independent role in moral reasoning - any role logically independent of the values that (...) bring persons into conflict - those domains must be determined by rules which are not derived from those values. (shrink)

Health care reforms, in particular the expansion of public and/or private health care benefit coverage to some or all population groups, is becoming an increasingly hot topic for discussion—and in some cases for action—at all levels of government. With almost 16% of Americans estimated to be uninsured for at least part of the year, opinion polls show health care near the top of the general public’s list of concerns. Little wonder that presidential candidates for the 2008 election are incorporating ‘‘universal (...) health care coverage’’ proposals in their campaign platforms. Will ‘‘cradle-to-grave’’ coverage for all become a reality or will they just experience cradle-to-grave debates over this issue? That is essentially one of the questions posed in the following discussion on the role of nonprofit health care organizations in promoting, and operating under, universal health care coverage. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend relies on a flat tax on the use of natural resources to fund the eradication of world poverty. Hillel Steiner's Global Fund taxes the full rental value of owned natural resources and distributes the proceeds equally. The paper compares the Dividend and the Fund and defends the Global Share, a novel proposal that taxes either use or ownership, does so (when possible) progressively, and distributes the revenue according to a prioritarian rather than a sufficientarian (...) or egalitarian principle. (shrink)

Two of the greatest challenges facing humanity are environmental degradation and the persistence of poverty. Both can be met by instituting a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) that would slow pollution and natural-resource depletion while collecting funds to avert poverty worldwide. Unlike Hillel Steiner's Global Fund, which is presented as a fully just regime governing the use of planetary resources, the GRD is meant as merely a modest but widely acceptable and therefore realistic step toward justice. Paula Casal has (...) set forth various ways in which this step might be improved upon. Solid counter-arguments can be given to her criticisms and suggestions. But to specify the best (effective and realizable) design of an appropriate global institutional mechanism with some confidence, economists, political scientists, jurists, environmental scientists, and activists would need to be drawn in to help think through the immense empirical and political complexities posed by this urgent task. (shrink)

The paper discusses recent proposals by Carroll and Chen, as well as Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati to explain the arrow of time without a Past Hypothesis, i.e. the assumption of a special initial state of the universe. After discussing the role of the Past Hypothesis and the controversy about its status, we explain why Carroll's model - which establishes an arrow of time as typical - can ground sensible predictions and retrodictions without assuming something akin to a Past Hypothesis. We (...) then propose a definition of a Boltzmann entropy for a classical N-particle system with gravity, suggesting that a Newtonian gravitating universe might provide a relevant example of Carroll's entropy model. This invites comparison with the work of Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati that identifies typical arrows of time in a relational formulation of classical gravity on shape space. We clarify the difference between this gravitational arrow in terms of shape complexity and the entropic arrow in absolute spacetime, and work out the key advantages of the relationalist theory. We end by pointing out why the entropy concept relies on absolute scales and is thus not relational. (shrink)

Four experiments examined how accurately participants can report the times of their own decisions. Within an auditory reaction time task, participants reported the time at which the tone was presented, they decided on the response, or the response key was pressed. Decision time reports were checked for plausibility against the actual RTs, and we compared the effects of experimental manipulations on these two measures to see whether the reported decision times showed appropriate effects. In addition, we estimated the amount of (...) error associated with individual decision time reports by checking how often participants’ decision time reports were implausibly early or late , and by using several quantitative models. Overall, the results suggest that decision time reports are not very accurate but they may be usable for some purposes. (shrink)

'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Until recently discussion of deliberative politics took place almost exclusively among political philosophers, but many questions raised in this philosophical discussion cry out for empirical investigation. This book provides the first extended empirical study of deliberative politics, addressing, in particular, questions of the preconditions and consequences of high level deliberation. Using parliamentary debates in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as an empirical base, the authors (...) measure the level of deliberation by constructing a 'Discourse Quality Index'. As deliberative politics moves to the forefront of political theory, this book makes an important contribution to deliberative democracy. (shrink)

This essay argues that a liberalism that avoids legal moralism – that is neutral between rival conceptions of the good – cannot embrace intervention in commercial transactions, but is thereby precluded neither from identifying some such transactions as exploitative nor from redressing them by other means.

I present and defend here a thesis named vehicleless externalism for conceptual mental episodes. According to it, the constitutive relations there are between the production of conceptual mental episodes by an individual and the inclusion of this individual in social discursive practices make it non-necessary to equate, even partially, conceptual mental episodes with the occurrence of physical events inside of that individual. Conceptual mental episodes do not have subpersonal vehicles; they have owners: persons in interpretational practices. That thesis is grounded (...) on inferentialism and on the endorsement of the idea that "meaning is normative". After having recapitulated this heritage and after having presented that thesis, the paper especially attempts to articulate how, in that framework, we may then positively conceive the relations there are between conceptual mental episodes, intracranial events and inferential behaviour. (shrink)

La integración de la tecnología en el ámbito del derecho penal plantea desafíos significativos debido a la falta de regulación de la inteligencia artificial (IA), lo que podría comprometer los derechos fundamentales. Este estudio se centra en abordar estos desafíos y proponer soluciones mediante un análisis exhaustivo de la situación actual y las posibles implicaciones de la IA en el sistema jurídico penal. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar los problemas, desafíos y oportunidades que surgen con la implementación (...) de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se busca identificar la necesidad de una regulación específica para la IA en el derecho penal, con el fin de proteger los derechos fundamentales de las personas y garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo. Para abordar esta problemática, se adoptó un enfoque metodológico cualitativo. Se llevó a cabo una revisión bibliográfica detallada para examinar los antecedentes, problemas y desafíos asociados con la IA en los sistemas jurídicos, especialmente en el ámbito penal. Además, se realizaron análisis de criterios y opiniones de expertos en derecho para obtener una comprensión más profunda de la situación y las posibles soluciones. Los resultados de este estudio revelan la necesidad urgente de establecer una normativa específica para regular la aplicación de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se destaca que la falta de regulación representa un riesgo significativo para los derechos fundamentales, especialmente en lo que respecta a la configuración de delitos con el apoyo de la IA. Además, se identifican diferentes dimensiones que deben abordarse en la regulación, incluyendo principios y reglas básicas del derecho, supervisión humana de los sistemas de IA y la promoción de la innovación responsable en este campo. Este artículo subraya la importancia de establecer una regulación efectiva para la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Esta regulación no solo protegerá los derechos fundamentales de las personas, sino que también promoverá un uso responsable y progresivo de la IA como una herramienta valiosa para los profesionales del derecho. Es crucial que la regulación sea integral y adaptable para garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo en la era digital. (shrink)

Something … happened … in the first half of this century, and the second half, hovering between nightmare and parody, is only its shadow. Even so we must take its measure. Not on a small scale, based on the last three or four centuries…. But since philosophy, even in its possibility, is at stake, the true assessment, incalculable as it is, of the entire history of the West is needed. And that is another matter altogether.We know that this other matter (...) was, at the time, the Heidegger affair…. Since Nietzsche no thinker has delved so deeply and so far into the question of the essence of philosophy , nor has there been anyone who has opened a dialogue of such breadth and rigor with the tradition of the West. Nonetheless, a detail concerning this subject requires our attention: to subscribe, as I do, to Heidegger’s theses , or even to grant a primary place to his thought, does not amount to any kind of declaration or profession of “Heideggerianism,” as it is called…. Strictly speaking, the idea of a “Heideggerianism” is meaningless. It is not out of coyness or inconsistency that Heidegger constantly reminded us that “there is no philosophy of Heidegger.” This clearly was an expression of his own question in condensed form: the question of Being could not in any way produce a new thesis on Being or, even less, give rise to any sort of “concept of the world.” … Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe teaches philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. His books include The Literary Absolute , Le Sujet de la philosophie, L’imitation des moderns, and, most recently, La Fiction du politique, forthcoming in an English translation from Basil Blackwell Press. Paula Wissing is a free-lance translator and editor. She has recently translated Paul Veyne’s Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? (shrink)

This book is the second half of a project begun to make available to the English reader a substantial selection of Jan Mukarovsky's critical writings. Th first volume, The Word And Verbal Art (New Haven, 1977). comprised essays devoted to literature. The present volume contains sixteen of essays on aesthetics and arts other than literature.

Across languages, we find epistemic indefinites, i.e. existential determiners that can convey information about the speaker’s epistemic state.1 One such indefinite is Spanish alg´un, which marks ignorance on the part of the speaker. By using alg´un in (1a) the speaker signals that he is unable (or unwilling) to identify the doctor that Mar´ıa married. Hence, it would be odd for him to add a namely continuation that explicitly identifies the doctor in question, as in (1b). From now on, we will (...) refer to the marking of the speaker’s lack of knowledge as an ‘epistemic effect.’ (Alonso-Ovalle and Men´endez-Benito, 2003). (shrink)

Philosophical theories of memory rarely distinguish between importantly different sorts of memory: procedural, semantic and episodic. I argue for a temporal representation theory to explain the unique characteristic of episodic memory as the only form of conscious memory. A careful distinction between implicit and explicit representation shows how the past figures in memory. In procedural and semantic memory, the influence of the past is implicit by which I mean that the past experience is used but not represented in the skill (...) or knowledge. Episodic memory, in contrast, depends on representing a past experience as past. On a temporal representation theory of consciousness, a conscious state represents the present moment, and in the case of episodic memory, it includes a representation of past experience. The embedded account of the ‘feeling of pastness’ takes past experience to be part of the explicit content of a conscious state. An episodic memory is a representation of the present that includes a representation of the past. Whereas a higher-order theory of consciousness can give no reason why only episodic memories are conscious, a temporal theory explains why episodic memories are both higher-order and conscious. Finally, I consider the essential role of episodic memory in the formation of a temporally extended self. The demands of a social environment motivate development of an ability to track the mental states of others and oneself over time. By incorporating past experience (and future experience) into the present, episodic memory extends experience in time to form the sense of self. Through a careful examination of the function of temporal representation, we can see why the past is not consciously represented in procedural and semantic memory and the value of consciously representing the past in episodic memory. (shrink)

Neste artigo apresentamos uma perspectiva de compreensão da história da filosofia, na qual é possível acessar outros modos de como essa história pode ser interpretada. Nesta perspectiva ocorre a desconstrução epistêmica eurocentrada de legitimação da ideia de um “milagre” grego que permite o surgimento da filosofia nessa região em detrimento a outros lugares. O pressuposto indicado é o da pluriversalidade de Mogobe Ramose (2011) que apresenta a ideia de pensamento reflexivo e crítico como condição humana, independente de local. Em relação (...) ao continente africano trazemos a crítica de que a escravidão moderna promovida pela Europa desumanizou africanos e indígenas e, com isso, lhes nega a capacidade de pensamento. Após essa análise, apresentamos a filosofia afro-brasileira como um desdobramento da filosofia africana em seu deslocamento do continente africano para as Américas no período da escravidão e colonização. Apresentamos as bases epistêmicas dessa filosofia mantidas nas culturas afro-brasileiras. Destacamos, também, os seus subsídios corporais, salientando a sua dimensão ética e estética ao propor outros modos de se relacionar em que o coletivo é a alternativa ao individualismo, no qual se destaca uma ética comunitária e solidária. As narrativas constituídas no processo colonizador da modernidade são revistas em seus pressupostos de supremacia para dar lugar a uma filosofia que alcance o outro, que se estabeleça na alteridade. Tal proposta nos parece relevante para o ensino formal de filosofia, pois dialoga diretamente com a realidade de mundo existencial formativa do país, e aponta outras possibilidades de organização da vida em distintos aspectos, mas todos eles perpassados pela educação, neste caso, uma educação para ser e estar com o outro, o que solicita a revisão curricular na grade da filosofia, tanto na formação de professores quanto na disciplina destinada ao ensino médio. (shrink)

Results of R. Miller in 2009 proved several theorems about algebraic fields and computable categoricity. Also in 2009, A. Frolov, I. Kalimullin, and R. Miller proved some results about the degree spectrum of an algebraic field when viewed as a subfield of its algebraic closure. Here, we show that the same computable categoricity results also hold for finite-branching trees under the predecessor function and for connected, finite-valence, pointed graphs, and we show that the degree spectrum results do not hold for (...) these trees and graphs. We also offer an explanation for why the degree spectrum results distinguish these classes of structures: although all three structures are algebraic structures, the fields are what we call effectively algebraic. (shrink)

On the basis of Swiss decision cases it is investigated to what extent politicians are guided by their conscience about the common good or political self interest.

Buscamos demonstrar que a ação política, na visão de Hannah Arendt, não é meio para atingir qualquer fim, sendo sinônimo de liberdade, o que faz com que a autora problematize a tradicional identificação da política com violência, a partir de uma crítica ao equacionamento, que remonta aos primórdios do pensamento filosófico sobre o tema, de liberdade e vontade, fazer o que se deseja, o que leva a pensadora em questão a trabalhar as duas dimensões da ação política, isto é, a (...) dimensão agonística e a consensualista, significando esta última uma liberdade mutuamente garantida. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction The Self‐ownership Paradox Solving the Paradox Acknowledgments.

This article explores the implications of responsibility‐sensitive justice for one set of intergenerational rights and duties. It focuses on the distinctive set of rights and duties, pertaining to procreation and parenting, that can be derived from Left Libertarianism's foundational entitlements. Broadly speaking, those implied rights and duties are such that all children's ability levels should be of equal value at the threshold of adulthood.

La littérature philosophique sur le modèle de la démocratie déliberative insiste sur la qualité déliberative dont peuvent faire preuve les média. C’est seulement à cette condition que l’on peut avoir une sphère publique où une pluralité d’opinions peuvent émerger. Des recherches empiriques révèlent néanmoins que les média présentent la politique comme un jeu de divertissement avec des gagnants et des perdants, bien loin de l’idéal délibératif d’un échange réfléchi d’arguments. Étant donné la pression du marché sur les média, il est (...) difficile d’y remédier. L’espoir le plus grand se trouve dans de petites niches sophistiquées des débats en ligne. (shrink)