In this article I compare Hume and Whitehead on the experience of causality. I examine Whitehead's examples of such an experience and I offer a defense of Whitehead against Hume on this topic.

In Improvisation, Samuel Wells defines improvisation in the theater as "a practice through which actors seek to develop trust in themselves and one another in order that they may conduct unscripted dramas without fear." Sounds a lot like life, doesn't it? Building trust, overcoming fear, conducting relationships, and making choices--all without a script. Wells establishes theatrical improvisation as a model for Christian ethics, a matter of "faithfully improvising on the Christian tradition." He views the Bible not as a "script" (...) but as a "training school" that shapes the habits and practices of the Christian community. Drawing on scriptural narratives and church history, Wells explains six practices that characterize both improvisation and Christian ethics. His model of improvisation reinforces the goal of Christian ethics--to teach Christians to "embody their faith in the practices of discipleship all the time."--Publisher description. (shrink)

The story of God -- The story of the church -- The story of ethics -- The story of Christian ethics -- Universal ethics -- Subversive ethics -- Ecclesial ethics -- Good order -- Good life -- Good relationships -- Good beginnings and endings -- Good earth.

Relative essentialism, the view that multiple objects about which there are distinct de re modal truths can occupy the same space at the same time, is a metaphysical view that dissolves a number of metaphysical issues. The present essay constructs and defends relative essentialism and argues that it is implicit in some of the ideas of W. V. Quine and Donald Davidson. Davidson’s published views about individuation and sameness can accommodate the common-sense insights about change and persistence of Aristotle and (...) Kripke. Aristotle and Kripke have to give up unmediated direct reference resting on a unique correct articulation of reality into entities. Davidson has to acknowledge a distinction between descriptions giving accidental and those giving essential features of an object. Quine and Davidson were in a position to be a relative essentialist, but were over-impressed by supervenience. The relative essentialist view of beings developed from Quine and Davidson strongly suggests the Heideggerian distinction between beings and Being, and is the perspective from which analytic philosophy can engage that topic. Relative essentialism also connects analytic philosophy to Derrida’s thinking about differance. (shrink)

Phenomenal particularism is the view that particular external objects are sometimes part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. It is a central part of naïve realist or relational views of perception. We consider a series of recent objections to phenomenal particularism and argue that naïve realism has the resources to block them. In particular, we show that these objections rest on assumptions about the nature of phenomenal character that the naïve realist will reject, and that they ignore the full (...) resources that naïve realism has to offer in explaining phenomenal character. (shrink)

I am writing on moral knowledge in Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. There are two basic parts. In the first part, I articulate and attack a predominant interpretation of the Essay . This interpretation attributes to Locke the view that he did not write in the Essay anything that would be inconsistent with his early views in the Questions Concerning the Laws of Nature that there exists a single, ultimate, moral standard, i.e., the Law of Nature. For example, John Colman, (...) in his book John Locke's Moral Philosophy , argues that even though Locke explains in the Essay that we arbitrarily create our moral notions, they are still objective since they are bound together with the Law of Nature. Colman explains that the features of human nature relevant to the derivation of the Law of Nature are universally shared needs and concerns . I argue that this presupposes a view of Locke which assumes that there are essences of species independent of our beliefs about them. However, I attempt to show from the text of the Essay that this view cannot be supported. ;In the second part, I argue that the text of the Essay supports two alternative theses. The first is that given the kind of metaphysical world-view presupposed by the corpuscular method of science employed within the Essay, coupled with Locke's commitment to the possibility of moral knowledge, he was left with only one option with reference to ethics, viz., to make moral goodness or evil a mind-dependent relation between a rule and an action, instead of a property of an action or person which exists independently of our moral beliefs. This view is logically inconsistent with the existence of the Law of Nature. The second is that Locke has a semantical view of moral claims which is consistent with his relational view of moral goodness, viz., the primary function of moral judgments is to recommend behavior for ourselves and others. I described. However, Locke explains in the Essay that the opposite takes place with respect to our moral notions: events and persons must conform to the moral notion. ;On the account that I offer, Locke's views on moral epistemology are much closer to David Hume's than many have supposed, and correspondingly, anticipate the more skeptical views of moral epistemology in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...) as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

The present paper is about the author’s current research on children’s education in urban contexts. It departs from the rising offer of programmes for school children in out-of-school contexts (e.g. museums, libraries, science centres). It asks what makes these practices educational (and not just interesting, entertaining and/or audience building). Based on Biesta ( 2006a , 2010 ) theory of education, the author frames and analyses the educational characteristics of, and possibilities of articulating, in and out-of-school educational practices. This paper aims (...) at understanding if the occasional outing from primary school premises promotes interruptions in the humanist foundations of school. In order to analyse relations between different institutions and professionals (to be) engaged in educational activities and programmes, Nóvoa ( 2002 , 2009 ) essays will be brought to the discussion, namely his conception of the ‘Public Space of Education’—as a space where culture, education, arts, sports and leisure are shared responsibilities, and where diverse institutions are networked aiming towards societal pluralism. I argue for the possibility of using cities’ public spaces as contexts with a worldly quality to complexify children’s education. Nevertheless, I draw attention to the unbearable educational lightness that these practices may carry if they do not go beyond the praise of chance; as well as to their unsustainable weight if they perpetually repeat school’s normal orders and add up rational discourses. (shrink)

Much attention has been paid to moral understanding as an individual achievement, when a single agent gains insight into distinctly moral matters. Crucially overlooked, I argue, is the phenomenon of shared moral understanding, when you and I understand moral matters together, in a way that can’t be reduced to each of us having moral understanding on our own. My argument pays close attention to two central moral practices: justifying our actions to others, and apologizing for wrongdoing. I argue that, whenever (...) I owe you a justification or an apology, I thereby owe it to you to aim at our coming to a shared moral understanding. My argument has two upshots. The first is a novel explanation of the importance of moral understanding in our lives, one that emphasizes the importance of understanding moral reasons together. The second is a better understanding of the very obligations involved in two of our most central interpersonal moral practices. (shrink)

Este ensaio aborda o conceito de amizade em Kant, e procura relacioná-lo com amoral, o direito e a política kantianos. Como forma de introduzir a temática, começa otexto com uma abordagem do conceito e dos tipos de amizade apresentados por Aristóteles.Após isso, aborda o conceito e os tipos de amizade apresentados por Kant, tanto naDoutrina da Virtude (A Metafísica dos Costumes) quanto nas Preleções sobre Ética. O textotrata então dos problemas e das vantagens que o conceito kantiano de amizade representa,para, (...) por fim, procurar, sob inspiração de Aristóteles, aproximar a temática da amizadeem Kant de suas filosofias moral, jurídica e política. (shrink)

Organisations are increasingly transforming themselves to remain profitable and obtain sustainable competitive advantages. Business processes are as important as technology in promoting organisational transformation. Organisational transformation ultimately entails combining existing business components, whether or not with the same use and design, with new ones to generate novel products and services. For example, one particular type of organisation transformation is digital transformation. This notion, which covers even the subjective aspects of organisational transformation, is currently under intensive discussion and suffers from the (...) semantics terms fluctuation related to the notion of ‘organisational transformation’. We argue that this topic could strongly benefit from an ontological analysis and conceptual clarification of these notions. This paper contributes with an attempt in this direction by proposing a Core Ontology of Organisational Transformation (COOT). This ontology comprises concepts and relations central to creating a reference model representing the organisational transformation paradigm. COOT was applied in a real-world case study on a car rental company. (shrink)

Resumo Palavras-chave Keywords : Narrative production. Authorship. Language. Memory. Identity. : This article comprises a detailed report on a project of narrative production, which is being conducted, every semester, with students entering the Languages course, on the Portuguese Language subject.The project consists of a process of production, reading, and rewriting of small narratives, which, at the end of the term, are gathered and organized by each student in order to assemble their own book craftily. The proposal came forth as a (...) strategy to try to solve problems related to the little familiarity with writing and to the lack of authorship marks. The engagement in the production of contextualized and guided narratives for a determined purpose has disclosed, at the end of each semester, similar results: pleasure to write, read and expose the produced texts for group discussions; concern with the interlocutor; presence of authorship marks; perception of discursive qualities on the text itself and on the text of others; concern with the adequacy of the writing to linguistic conventions; confidence on the writing process; perception of oneself as part of a history and as a result of multiple intersubjectivities; praise of one’s own life history and of one’s ancestors. The project finds itself based on enunciation theories. : Produção de narrativa. Autoria. Linguagem. Memória. Identidade. : Este artigo constitui-se do relato de um projeto de produção de narrativa que vem sendo desenvolvido, semestralmente, com alunos ingressantes no curso de Letras, na disciplina de Língua Portuguesa. O projeto consiste em um processo de produção, leitura e reescritura de pequenas narrativas com as quais, ao fim do semestre, cada aluno organiza e confecciona artesanalmente o seu próprio livro. A proposta surgiu como estratégia para tentar solucionar problemas relacionados à pouca familiaridade com a escrita e à ausência de marcas de autoria. O enfoque na produção de narrativas contextualizadas e orientadas para um determinado fim tem revelado, no fim de cada semestre, resultados semelhantes: prazer de escrever, de ler e de submeter à discussão do grupo os textos produzidos; preocupação com o interlocutor; presença de marcas de autoria; percepção de qualidades discursivas no próprio texto e no texto do outro; preocupação com a adequação da escrita às convenções linguísticas; segurança em relação à escrita; percepção de si como parte de uma história e como fruto de intersubjetividades múltiplas; valorização da própria história de vida e da de seus antepassados. O trabalho encontra suporte em teorias da linguística da enunciação. (shrink)

Seven informants , aged between 32 and 42, who had experienced at least one career change in their lives were interviewed about the history of their career trajectories. The interviews were analyzed according to the systematic and systemic reflexivity proposed by the phenomenological tradition: description, reduction and interpretation. The findings point to the need for professional guidance practice giving attention not only to professional information but also to a reflection of individual and work-related values. This would help both young people (...) and adults to see their own objectives more clearly and to be capable of formulating their own career plans and following them through. (shrink)

The historical formation of Brazil is distinguished from the majority of ex-colonial nations by one factor that is especially characteristic: an intense process of ethnic and cultural mixing. The Portuguese colonisers, who, unlike the English Puritans in North America, left their families and arrived in Brazil in small groups mainly composed of men, naturally tended to pair off with the women they found available - first of all indigenous women and later African women. There was nothing in Brazil to prevent (...) this spontaneous behaviour similar to the role played in the English colonies of North America by the strength of the family group or the strict religious observance of the community. Thus from the outset Brazil tended to accept racial mixing as a de facto reality. As Gilberto Freyre correctly noted in his book Casa Grande e Senzala:They mixed happily with women of colour from the very first contacts and many mixed-race children resulted, so much so that only a few thousand men were enough to colonize vast areas and compete with the greatest and most numerous peoples as regards the extent of the colonial territory and the effectiveness of colonizing activity. (shrink)

Richard Faber, the author of learned studies of Novalis, Vergil, Brecht, and Carl Schmitt, is aware that this is not the first book he has published with the same title. ad Jacob Taubes, the title...

Since the last war, one character of the political system in Belgium is the growth and the duration of the ministerial crisis. Some questions of public law appeared. How is it possible to maintain the continuity of the political and administrative action, without ministerial responsibility to Parliament, during the crisis? The Belgian Conseil d'Etat contributed, by the notion of the «affaires courantes», sort of general principle of public law, to give a solution to this problem.

Cet article propose un itinéraire de réflexion sur les fondements de l’éthique théologique en articulant trois contributions de Karl Barth à ce domaine : la définition de l’éthique comme l’impératif de l’indicatif qu’est la dogmatique, voire l’inséparabilité entre éthique et dogmatique qui place l’éthique à l’écoute de la révélation ; l’articulation d’un nexus christologique entre les catégories d’obéissance et de liberté comme « autodétermination déterminée » ; le débat sur l’Évangile et la Loi, comme révélation de l’histoire de la grâce (...) à partir de laquelle se déploie la grammaire d’une existence chrétienne. Cet itinéraire est entrecoupé par trois passages bibliques qui sont alignés sur les contributions de Barth : la vocation d’Abraham ; l’agonie de Jésus à Gethsémani ; la question posée à Jésus sur le bien qu’il faut faire pour entrer dans la vie éternelle. Nous suggérons que cet itinéraire biblique et barthien souligne qu’une éthique théologiquement construite conflue vers la christologie. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo enfoca duas questões abordadas pelo transhumanismo: imortalidade e longevidade. A primeira parte apresenta alguns contornos do programa transhumanista e a sua motivação. A segunda discute até que ponto a promessa de imortalidade não pode ser cumprida pela ideia de fazer o upload do cérebro na internet. A terceira parte se concentra na longevidade e mostra por que o programa transhumanista para idosos falha. Palavras-chave: Transhumanismo. Imortalidade. Longevidade. Upload de cérebro na internet.

Visual experiences seem to exhibit phenomenological particularity: when you look at some object, it – that particular object – looks some way to you. But experiences exhibit generality too: when you look at a distinct but qualitatively identical object, things seem the same to you as they did in seeing the first object. Naïve realist accounts of visual experience have often been thought to have a problem with each of these observations. It has been claimed that naïve realist views cannot (...) account for the generality of visual experiences, and that the naïve realist explanation of particularity has unacceptable implications for self- knowledge: the knowledge we have of the character of our own experiences. We argue in this paper that neither claim is correct: naïve realism can explain the generality of experiences, and the naïve realist explanation of particularity raises no problems for our self-knowledge. (shrink)

Neste ensaio apresentamos o conceito de vida para o filósofo e médico francês Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) e, posteriormente, desenvolvemos uma reflexão deste conceito, estabelecendo um paralelo entre a emergência da tecnociência e o transumanismo. Na primeira parte do ensaio, foram selecionados trechos das obras de Canguilhem, O normal e o patológico, O conhecimento da vida e o verbete “vida” escrito para a Encyclopédie Universalis. Sobre o verbete daremos atenção para a quarta interpretação sobre a vida proposta pelo filósofo. Além dos (...) textos escolhidos, utilizaremos artigos de especialistas que aprofundem a filosofia de Georges Canguilhem. Na segunda parte, apresentaremos, de modo geral, o surgimento e as implicações éticas da tecnociência na sociedade contemporânea. Na terceira parte, apresentaremos uma possível origem do transumanismo e o instigante e complexo debate em torno deste movimento. Neste tópico apresentaremos as contribuições de filósofos alinhados ao pensamento de Canguilhem e filósofos que refletem sobre o movimento transhumanista, tais como João de Fernandes Teixeira, Natasha Vita-More e Nick Bostrom. Na conclusão, apresentaremos a relevância do diálogo entre as áreas do conhecimento como a filosofia, ciências da vida e tecnologia para compreendermos os meandros da sociedade contemporânea.Palavras chave: Georges Canguilhem; vida; tecnociência; transhumanismo. (shrink)

In _Metaphysics_ A.4, Aristotle provides crucial information about fundamental aspects of the chemistry and microphysics of the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera. Besides the plenum and the void, which he identifies as the elements of the atomic theory, he presents what he himself names as _differences_. These fundamental differences are named so because they ought to be responsible for the emergence of all other differences in the physical world, and especially the ones that hit our senses. Aristotle (...) provides a list of three differences both in what is recognized as autochthonous terminology from Leucippus and Democritus, and in a translation to terms apparently more intelligible to Aristotelian listeners. Among those differences there is one in particular that is harder to comprehend than the other ones: _rhysmos_. Aristotle’s translation of _rhysmos_ into _sch__ēma_ has led most interpreters to acknowledge that it referred solely to atoms individually, while the other two differences would refer to relations between atoms. In this paper, I want to propose an interpretation in which _rhysmos_ actually refers to several aspects of the chemistry and microphysics of the atomic theory. (shrink)

The concept of innateness has historically exerted an influence in many regions of biology and it continues to play a significant role in cognitive science especially, developmental psychology and linguistics. This chapter provides an overview of some recent efforts to empirically study the innateness concept, both as deployed in folk contexts and among scientists. It considers whether this research really bolsters the standard criticism. The chapter describes research by Paul Griffiths and his collaborators, which seeks to assess whether the folk (...) concept of innateness is a manifestation of the folk biology. It reviews further research, largely due to Josh Knobe and Richard Samuels, on folk innateness judgments. The chapter describes how this research was extended in order to explore the issue of whether scientists’ innateness judgments rely on a distinctly scientific innateness concept, or whether they merely redeploy the folk concept. (shrink)

O presente ensaio visa apresentar de forma breve e modesta uma introdução à filosofia da mente, deste modo, abordaremos os seguintes tópicos: I) a relevância e a contribuição do dualismo para a filosofia da mente, posteriormente surgindo a reflexão sobre mente-cérebro; e, finalmente, II) o argumento do zumbi filosófico. A partir desta apresentação conclui-se que os tópicos levantados sobre a relevância do dualismo para a filosofia da mente e debate em torno do argumento do zumbi filosófico contribua para a inquietação (...) e investigação sobre a mente. (shrink)

In this work, we propose a computational approach to the triadic model of Peircean semiosis (meaning processes). We investigate theoretical constraints about the feasibility of simulated semiosis. These constraints, which are basic requirements for the simulation of semiosis, refer to the synthesis of irreducible triadic relations (Sign–Object–Interpretant). We examine the internal organization of the triad S–O–I, that is, the relative position of its elements and how they relate to each other. We also suggest a multi-level approach based on self-organization principles. (...) In this context, semiosis is described as an emergent process. Nevertheless, the term ‘emergence’ is often used in a very informal way in the so called ‘emergent’ computation, without clear explanations and/or definitions. In this paper, we discuss in some detail the meaning of the theoretical terms ‘emergence’ and ‘emergent’, showing how such an analysis can lead to improvements of the algorithm proposed. (shrink)

The processes underwriting the acquisition of culture remain unclear. How are shared habits, norms, and expectations learned and maintained with precision and reliability across large-scale sociocultural ensembles? Is there a unifying account of the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of culture? Notions such as “shared expectations,” the “selective patterning of attention and behaviour,” “cultural evolution,” “cultural inheritance,” and “implicit learning” are the main candidates to underpin a unifying account of cognition and the acquisition of culture; however, their interactions require greater (...) specification and clarification. In this article, we integrate these candidates using the variational (free-energy) approach to human cognition and culture in theoretical neuroscience. We describe the construction by humans of social niches that afford epistemic resources called cultural affordances. We argue that human agents learn the shared habits, norms, and expectations of their culture through immersive participation in patterned cultural practices that selectively pattern attention and behaviour. We call this process “thinking through other minds” (TTOM) – in effect, the process of inferring other agents’ expectations about the world and how to behave in social context. We argue that for humans, information from and about other people's expectations constitutes the primary domain of statistical regularities that humans leverage to predict and organize behaviour. The integrative model we offer has implications that can advance theories of cognition, enculturation, adaptation, and psychopathology. Crucially, this formal (variational) treatment seeks to resolve key debates in current cognitive science, such as the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of theory of mind abilities and the more fundamental distinction between dynamical and representational accounts of enactivism. (shrink)

This paper investigates the implicative conditional, a connective intended to describe the logical behavior of an empirically defined class of natural language conditionals, also named implicative conditionals, which excludes concessive and some other conditionals. The implicative conditional strengthens the strict conditional with the possibility of the antecedent and of the contradictory of the consequent. $${p\Rightarrow q}$$ p ⇒ q is thus defined as $${\lnot } \Diamond {(p \wedge \lnot q) \wedge } \Diamond {p \wedge } \Diamond {\lnot q}$$ ¬ ◊ (...) ( p ∧ ¬ q ) ∧ ◊ p ∧ ◊ ¬ q. We explore the logical properties of this conditional in a reflexive normal Kripke semantics, provide an axiomatic system and prove it to be sound and complete for our semantics. The implicative conditional validates transitivity and contraposition, which we take to be integral parts of reasoning and communication. But it only validates restricted versions of strengthening the antecedent, right weakening, simplification, and rational monotonicity. Apparent counterexamples to some of these properties are explained as due to contextual factors. Finally, the implicative conditional avoids the paradoxes of material and strict implication, and validates some connexive principles such as Aristotle’s theses and weak Boethius’ thesis, as well as some highly entrenched principles of conditionals, such as conjunction of consequents, disjunction of antecedents, modus ponens, cautious monotonicity and cut. (shrink)

I provide a theory of the metaphysical foundations of identity: an account what grounds facts of the form a=b. In particular, I defend the claim that indiscernibility grounds identity. This is typically rejected because it is viciously circular; plausible assumptions about the logic of ground entail that the fact that a=b partially grounds itself. The theory I defend is immune to this circularity.

Neste artigo, pretende-se descrever os pontos de maior relevância à teoria do conhecimento de Arthur Schopenhauer, levando em consideração a farta influência do idealismo transcendental kantiano em sua produção filosófica. No que diz respeito à formulação do conhecimento empírico, bem como às faculdades e princípios envolvidos no processo, busca-se promover a comparação entre os elementos pertinentes aos sistemas elaborados pelos respectivos filósofos, a fim de tornar explícitos os momentos em que Schopenhauer alinha-se ao idealismo transcendental kantiano e, igualmente, os momentos (...) em que o filósofo rompe com seu predecessor por meio da elaboração de um sistema filosófico original, de notória relevância para a história da filosofia. (shrink)

Public health and service delivery programmes, interventions and policies are typically developed and implemented for the primary purpose of effecting change rather than generating knowledge. Nonetheless, evaluations of these programmes may produce valuable learning that helps determine effectiveness and costs as well as informing design and implementation of future programmes. Such studies might be termed ‘opportunistic evaluations’, since they are responsive to emergent opportunities rather than being studies of interventions that are initiated or designed by researchers. However, current ethical guidance (...) and registration procedures make little allowance for scenarios where researchers have played no role in the development or implementation of a programme, but nevertheless plan to conduct a prospective evaluation. We explore the limitations of the guidance and procedures with respect to opportunistic evaluations, providing a number of examples. We propose that one key missing distinction in current guidance is moral responsibility: researchers can only be held accountable for those aspects of a study over which they have control. We argue that requiring researchers to justify an intervention, programme or policy that would occur regardless of their involvement prevents or hinders research in the public interest without providing any further protections to research participants. We recommend that trial consent and ethics procedures allow for a clear separation of responsibilities for the intervention and the evaluation. (shrink)

The aim of the Analytic of Concepts is to derive and deduce a set of pure concepts of the understanding, the categories, which play a central role in Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognition and judgment. This chapter is structured around two questions. First, what is a pure concept of the understanding? Second, what is involved in a deduction of a pure concept of the understanding? In answering the first, we focus on how the categories differ (...) from the pure forms of sensibility and examine whether they are known only to be the pure forms of human thinking or rather the forms of discursive cognition as such. In answering the second, we draw a distinction between the application and the exemplification of the categories and use it to identify different ways of understanding Kant’s project in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. These questions connect because the answer to the first determines how we should understand the kind of entitlement which is to be established in the Deduction. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é explorar as conexões entre o problema da morte, o conceito de ideia e a tese da indestrutibilidade do nosso ser com a morte, em Schopenhauer. Como ponto de partida, é apresentada a crítica de Schopenhauer à compreensão empírica da morte como passagem ao não-ser. Passa-se, então às considerações do filósofo sobre a indestrutibilidade do nosso ser com a morte, por meio do destaque às suas considerações sobre o caráter de coisa, vinculado à sua intepretação das (...) ideias como formas eternas. Após discorrer pontualmente a respeito do sentido desta noção na filosofia platônica, são apresentados os principais elementos que configuram a apropriação schopenhaueriana da teoria platônica das ideias tendo em vista exclusivamente o problema elegido, qual seja, a morte e a indestrutibilidade do nosso ser. (shrink)

The medical profession contains five “spheres of morality”: clinical care, clinical research, scientific knowledge, population health, and the market. These distinct sets of normative commitments require physicians to act in different ways depending on the ends of the activity in question. For example, a physician-scientist emphasizes patients’ well-being in clinic, prioritizes the scientific method in lab, and seeks to maximize shareholder returns as a board member of a pharmaceutical firm. Physicians increasingly occupy multiple roles in healthcare and move between them (...) frequently, creating the possibility of conflict between the ethical obligations of their various roles. This paper examines the entire moral landscape of medicine through the lens of role morality. It develops a novel framework that helps physicians recognize how their moral commitments depend on the nature and context of the situation, clarifies ethical conflicts that physicians face, and concludes with ideas for resolving these conflicts. (shrink)

We sometimes fail unwittingly to do things that we ought to do. And we are, from time to time, culpable for these unwitting omissions. We provide an outline of a theory of responsibility for unwitting omissions. We emphasize two distinctive ideas: (i) many unwitting omissions can be understood as failures of appropriate vigilance, and; (ii) the sort of self-control implicated in these failures of appropriate vigilance is valuable. We argue that the norms that govern vigilance and the value of self-control (...) explain culpability for unwitting omissions. (shrink)

I argue that Spinoza endorses "conceptual dependence monism," the thesis that all forms of metaphysical dependence (such as causation, inherence, and existential dependence) are conceptual in kind. In the course of explaining the view, I further argue that it is actually presupposed in the proof for his more famed substance monism. Conceptual dependence monism also illuminates several of Spinoza’s most striking metaphysical views, including the intensionality of causal contexts, parallelism, metaphysical perfection, and explanatory rationalism. I also argue that this priority (...) of the conceptual does not commit Spinoza to forms of idealism or mentalism. The question of how to understand different kinds of metaphysical dependence is quite controversial in Spinoza studies; I address major alternative readings in the notes. But there I also try to draw connections to the growing debate in contemporary discussions about metaphysical dependence, as this topic is a happy point of shared interest between Spinoza and contemporary metaphysicians alike. (shrink)

PRINCÍPIO DA COMPLEMENTARIDADE RECURSAL APÓS DECISÃO DOS EMBARGOS DE DECLARAÇÃO: GARANTIA DO CONTRADITÓRIO EM OPOSIÇÃO À PRECLUSÃO CONSUMATIVA.

Este ensaio aborda o conceito de amizade em Kant, e procura relacioná-lo com amoral, o direito e a política kantianos. Como forma de introduzir a temática, começa otexto com uma abordagem do conceito e dos tipos de amizade apresentados por Aristóteles.Após isso, aborda o conceito e os tipos de amizade apresentados por Kant, tanto naDoutrina da Virtude (A Metafísica dos Costumes) quanto nas Preleções sobre Ética. O textotrata então dos problemas e das vantagens que o conceito kantiano de amizade representa,para, (...) por fim, procurar, sob inspiração de Aristóteles, aproximar a temática da amizadeem Kant de suas filosofias moral, jurídica e política. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on whether and to what extent we judge that people are responsible for the consequences of their forgetfulness. We ran a series of behavioral studies to measure judgments of responsibility for the consequences of forgetfulness. Our results show that we are disposed to hold others responsible for some of their forgetfulness. The level of stress that the forgetful agent is under modulates judgments of responsibility, though the level of care that the agent exhibits toward performing (...) the forgotten action does not. We argue that this result has important implications for a long-running debate about the nature of responsible agency. (shrink)