El objetivo de este capítulo es ofrecer una lectura alternativa que centre la mirada en el protagonismo ciudadano tras su letargo antipolítico por décadas en la democracia venezolana. ¿Qué respuestas han surgido desde la ciudadanía para contrarrestar la desinformación? Las respuestas no están en un humanismo digital, ni en la ética cívica ni una epistemología por la verdad. Este êthos ciudadano se ha orientado, más bien, hacia una infoética, una praxis ciudadana con raíces en la ética periodística y se ha (...) fortalecido gracias a la creciente alfabetización mediática y lucha contra los bulos. Este êthos ciudadano no está, sin embargo, desprovisto de valores. La defensa de la democracia y de derechos fundamentales han renovado el compromiso por la ciudadanía y por la información para hacer frente a la polarización, la relativización de la tragedia y la posverdad. (shrink)

Aproximación a los problemas que implica la obtención y posterior tratamiento de muestras biológicas en menores para desarrollar investigación científica. Este trabajo se ha realizado en el marco y gracias al Proyecto I+D+i Minoría de edad, vulnerabilidad e investigación biomédica (Minor-Inbio) Ref. nº. DER2013-47232-R, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad.

La complejidad del mundo actual demanda de nuevas formas de pensar, diferentes a las convencionales. La educación exige cambios acelerados en la formación de los seres humanos. Cambios impredecibles que toman por sorpresa, quizá se está frente a una transformación en contextos geográficos, comunicación, convivencia con los ‘otros’; todo ello afectado por las transformaciones constantes. A la par de estas transformaciones, las grandes problemáticas sociales, ambientales, políticas, económicas continúan creciendo, no se logra alcanzar una sostenibilidad en el estilo de vida (...) de las sociedades. Es cierto que estamos en un mundo globalizado gracias a la Internet y a las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC), por consecuente la información está al alcance de la mayoría de los seres humanos. Si el planeta está al frente de una globalización tecnológica, la educación también debe globalizarse, sin perder la identidad local. De ahí nace el desafío de reinventar los procesos de formación, direccionarlos hacia la transformación social, y al desarrollo de competencias profesionales básicas como el ‘aprender a vivir juntos’ bajo los cánones éticos que como civilización históricamente se practica. (shrink)

Comentaba en el Prólogo a la 1ª edición que nos cuesta distinguir las técnicas de los métodos y aceptar que la buena investigación clínica es la que se realiza con método riguroso. Este método reposa en cuatro pilares: que la pregunta o cuestión formulada sea relevante, que esté enunciada de manera precisa y operativa, que sea abordada o respondida con el mejor medio disponible en cada circunstancia, y que evite redundancias o repeticiones de cuestiones que ya han sido examinadas por (...) otros investigadores. Añadía que es imprescindible una dosis de curiosidad y de entusiasmo por lo que se examina. Como se ha dicho con frecuencia, el ensayo clínico es, entre los métodos de investigación clínica, el "patrón oro", el que, gracias a su característica inherente (la distribución aleatoria), está sujeto a menores posibilidades de sesgos. Esta consideración no ha cambiado. Sin embargo, mayor validez interna del método no implica mayor relevancia de los resultados obtenidos. Actualmente es común examinar protocolos de ensayos clínicos bien diseñados, cuyo "único" problema es que pretenden evaluar aspectos de escaso interés farmacológico, terapéutico, epidemiológico o sanitario. ¿Qué interés tiene la evaluación del quinto fármaco de una serie en una indicación para la que ya hay cuatro análogos que le han precedido en su desarrollo? ¿Qué interés tiene la evaluación de un nuevo hipocolesterolemiante o de un nuevo fármaco para la osteoporosis si no se conocen, respectivamente, el impacto de la hipercolesterolemia como factor de riesgo de cardiopatía isquémica o la epidemiología de las fracturas en mujeres postmenopáusicas en nuestro medio? En relación con estos ejemplos, tendría mucho más interés conocer los determinantes epidemiológicos y la historia natural de la cardiopatía isquémica en nuestro medio y conocer la epidemiología de las fracturas "espontáneas" y su impacto sobre la demanda asistencial; para ello serían de mucha utilidad métodos de investigación cuya validez intrínseca podría ser considerada "subóptima" en comparación con el ensayo clínico. En los últimos años ha irrumpido con fuerza en numerosísimas publicaciones el concepto de la "medicina basada en pruebas". Esta moda refleja en parte la importancia que de manera creciente reguladores e industria farmacéutica han concedido a los ensayos clínicos: se ha alcanzado un consenso global sobre la necesidad de demostrar la "eficacia" de los nuevos medicamentos por medio de ensayos clínicos controlados. De este modo, los organismos reguladores y autoridades sanitarias exigen ensayos clínicos como uno de los elementos necesarios para obtener el registro de un nuevo medicamento. Como consecuencia, se realizan y publican muchos más ensayos clínicos que antaño, y actualmente se pueden encontrar ensayos que sustentan la eficacia de la mayoría de los medicamentos disponibles en indicaciones específicas. Si hace unos años bastaba con examinar si había ensayos clínicos que demostraran la eficacia de un determinado medicamento antes de adoptarlo como uno de los de uso común (o de incluirlo en el formulario de un hospital), en la actualidad estas decisiones son más complejas, y se basan sobre todo en una consideración atenta de los objetivos, los métodos y los resultados de cada ensayo o de otros estudios destinados a evaluar eficacia, seguridad, conveniencia o comodidad y coste. Un buen clínico debe saber a la vez leer críticamente las publicaciones científicas y producir información relevante. Leer críticamente significa evaluar la pertinencia de los problemas investigados, los métodos aplicados y la interpretación de los resultados obtenidos. Producir información relevante implica saber identificar los problemas que deben y pueden ser objeto de investigación, formularlos, y ser protagonista (generalmente como parte de un equipo) de la elaboración del plan de investigación. En los últimos años se han publicado varios textos similares al que tiene en sus manos, todos ellos de gran calidad. El presente no pretende ser el más exhaustivo, sino sobre todo interesar a los profesionales sanitarios en el apasionante campo de la investigación clínica, en su sentido más amplio, estimulando la autonomía del lector para investigar un problema o una situación, y para aprender a leer las publicaciones científicas clínicas. Su lectura debe contribuir a que términos como "doble ciego", "p<0,05", "casos y controles", etc. dejen de ser fetiches-misterios, para convertirse en herramientas conceptualmente sencillas, útiles para la evaluación de la actividad asistencial. Esta nueva edición está muy ampliada respecto a la anterior. Se han reorganizado las generalidades sobre los objetivos y métodos de la investigación clínica, se han ampliado algunos aspectos del ensayo clínico, como el análisis de subgrupos, los aspectos estadísticos y éticos y las publicaciones sobre ensayos clínicos, se han añadido cuatro nuevos capítulos, sobre efectividad y eficacia, metaanálisis, ensayos en un solo paciente y farmacoeconomía, y el Glosario ha sido revisado y ampliado (sobre todo con términos de farmacocinética, desarrollo preclínico de fármacos, estadística y biotecnología genética), e incluye casi 750 términos. Para su elaboración me he basado en numerosos textos y diccionarios,a aunque he reformulado la mayoría de las definiciones y he optado por añadir en ocasiones algún comentario personal a muchas de ellas. Carles Vallvé ha escrito el capítulo sobre Normas de Buena Práctica Clínica. Agradezco asimismo las precisones y comentarios de Eulalia Dalmau, Javier Jiménez, Josep Maria Castel y Xavier Vidal, así como los comentarios a versiones anteriores de Fernando Antezana y Jorleny Rojas. Eduard Diogène me sugirió la idea de la portada, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos, que Goya comentaba así: " La fantasía abandonada de la razón produce monstruos imposibles: unida con ella es madre de las artes y origen de sus marabillas" La 1ª edición de este libro, que fue promovida por Zeneca, tuvo una amplia difusión, en España y en América Latina. AstraZeneca me propuso preparar esta 2ª edición del mismo modo abierto que en ocasión de la primera; su actual Director Médico Ramón Estiarte me ha ayudado en la selección de términos para el Glosario. A él y al anterior Director Médico de Zeneca, Manuel Martín, agradezco su idea inicial, su estímulo y ayuda, y las facilidades que han dado para la difusión de este libro. Joan-Ramon Laporte. (shrink)

The German word Destruktion was used by Heidegger in the sense that philosophy should destroy some ontological concepts and the everyday meanings of certain words. Tradition allows the transmission of knowledge and sensations of continuity and connection with the past, but it must be critically evaluated so that it does not perpetuate certain prejudices. According to Heidegger, tradition transmits, but it also conceals. Tradition induces self-evidence and prevents us from accessing the origin of concepts. It makes us believe that we (...) do not need to return to that origin. Making tradition transparent dissolves the concealments it has provoked. Here I will apply this idea to the mental and the physical by suggesting that the mind-body problem has inherited occultations that are born in Descartes himself. As a result, what could be a new philosophical framework for the research in consciousness emerges: That as an individual cognitive being I cannot avoid splitting reality into what I am and what I am not, extending then the individual duality to a collective error transmitted culturally. (shrink)

Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host–microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as “holobionts”) can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the (...) species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology. (shrink)

Many political theorists argue that immigration restrictions are unjust and defend broadly open borders. In this paper, I examine the implications of this view for individual conduct. In particular, I argue that the citizens of states that enforce unjust immigration restrictions have duties to disobey certain immigration laws. States conscript their citizens to help enforce immigration law by imposing legal duties on these citizens to monitor, report, and refrain from interacting with unauthorized migrants. If an ideal of open borders is (...) true, these laws are unjust. Furthermore, if citizens comply with their legal duties, they contribute to violating the rights of migrants. We are obligated to refrain from contributing to rights-violations. So, citizens are obligated to disobey immigration laws. I defend the moral requirement to disobey immigration laws against the objection that disobedience to the law is excessively risky and the objection that citizens have political obligations to obey the law. (shrink)

States restrict immigration on a massive scale. Governments fortify their borders with walls and fences, authorize border patrols, imprison migrants in detention centers, and deport large numbers of foreigners. Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration argues that immigration restrictions are systematically unjust and examines how individual actors should respond to this injustice. Javier Hidalgo maintains that individuals can rightfully resist immigration restrictions and often have strong moral reasons to subvert these laws. This book makes the case that (...) unauthorized migrants can permissibly evade, deceive, and use defensive force against immigration agents, that smugglers can aid migrants in crossing borders, and that citizens should disobey laws that compel them to harm immigrants. Unjust Borders is a meditation on how individuals should act in the midst of pervasive injustice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPeople smugglers help transport migrants across international borders without authorization and in return for compensation. Many people object to people smuggling and believe that the smuggling of migrants is an evil trade. In this paper, I offer a qualified defense of people smuggling. In particular, I argue that people smuggling that assists refugees in escaping threats to their rights can be morally justified. I then rebut the objections that people smugglers exploit migrants, have defective motivations, and wrongly violate the law. (...) My conclusion is that people smuggling is sometimes a permissible way of helping refugees to evade unjust immigration restrictions and compelling states to bear their fair share of the global refugee population. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Do Buddhist philosophical commitments support a particular theory of well-being? Most authors who have examined this question argue that Buddhist ideas are compatible with multiple theories of well-being. In this paper, I contend that one tradition of Buddhist philosophy—Abhidharma—does imply a specific theory of welfare. In particular, Abhidharma supports hedonism. Most Ābhidharmikas claim that only property-particulars called dharmas ultimately exist and I argue that an Abhidharmic theory of well-being should only refer to these properties. Yet the only dharmas that (...) could plausibly be intrinsically good are phenomenal properties that are good in virtue of how they feel. Thus, the only intrinsically good things are pleasures. I defend this surprising conclusion from various interpretative objections and show that my argument can also inform contemporary philosophical debates about welfare. (shrink)

Bourrat and Griffiths :33, 2018) have recently argued that most of the evidence presented by holobiont defenders to support the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals is not to the point and is not even adequate to discriminate multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages that would not be considered evolutionary individuals by most holobiont defenders. They further argue that an adequate criterion to distinguish the two categories is fitness alignment, presenting the notion of fitness boundedness as a criterion that (...) allows divorcing true multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages and provides an adequate criterion to single out genuine evolutionary multispecies assemblages. A consequence of their criterion is that holobionts, as conventionally defined by hologenome defenders, are not evolutionary individuals except in very rare cases, and for very specific host-symbiont associations. This paper is a critical response to Bourrat and Griffiths’ arguments and a defence of the arguments presented by holobiont defenders. Drawing upon the case of the hologenomic basis of the evolution of sanguivory in vampire bats, I argue that Bourrat and Griffiths overlook some aspects of the biological nature of the microbiome that justifies the thesis that holobionts are evolutionarily different to other multispecies assemblages. I argue that the hologenome theory of evolution should not define the hologenome as a collection of genomes, but as the sum of the host genome plus some traits of the microbiome which together constitute an evolutionary individual, a conception I refer to as the stability of traits conception of the hologenome. Based on that conception I argue that the evidence presented by holobiont defenders is to the point, and supports the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals. In this sense, the paper offers an account of the holobiont that aims to foster a dialogue between hologenome advocates and hologenome critics. (shrink)

Many people think that citizenship should not be for sale. On their view, it is morally wrong for states to sell citizenship to foreigners. In this article, I challenge this view. I argue that it is in principle permissible for states to sell citizenship. I contend that, if states can permissibly deny foreigners access to citizenship in some cases, then states can permissibly give foreigners the option of buying citizenship in these cases. Furthermore, I defend the permissibility of selling citizenship (...) against the objections that selling citizenship values citizenship in the wrong way, corrupts civic norms, and unfairly discriminates against poor foreigners. I conclude by noting that, although selling citizenship is not intrinsically wrong, it could still be wrong for states to sell citizenship in practice. If existent immigration restrictions are unjust, then it may be impermissible for states to sell citizenship in the real world. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their arguments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms (...) of what it takes for a “conglomerate” to be considered an interesting individual from a biological point of view. However, the debates about holobiont individuality have important ontological implications that have remained vaguely explored from a metaphysical framework. The purpose of this paper is to cover that gap by presenting a metaphysical approach to holobionts individuality. Drawing upon a conception of natural selection that puts the focus on the transgenerational recurrence of the traits and that supports the thesis that holobionts are units of selection, we argue that holobionts bear emergent traits and exert downward powers over the entities that compose them. In this vein, we argue, a reasonable argument can be made for conceiving holobionts as emergent biological individuals. (shrink)

Symbiosis plays a fundamental role in contemporary biology, as well as in recent thinking in philosophy of biology. The discovery of the importance and universality of symbiotic associations has brought new light to old debates in the field, including issues about the concept of biological individuality. An important aspect of these debates has been the formulation of the hologenome concept of evolution, the notion that holobionts are units of natural selection in evolution. This review examines the philosophical assumptions that underlie (...) recent proposal of the hologenome concept of evolution, and traces those debates back in time to their historical origins, to the moment when the connection between the topics of symbiosis and biological individuality first caught the attention of biologists. The review is divided in two parts. The first part explores the historical origins of the connection between the notion of symbiosis and the concept of biological individuality, and emphasizes the role of A. de Bary, R. Pound, A. Schneider and C. Merezhkowsky in framing the debate. The second part examines the hologenome concept of evolution and explores four parallelisms between contemporary debates and the debates presented in the first part of the essay, arguing that the different debates raised by the hologenome concept were already present in the literature. I suggest that the novelty of the hologenome concept of evolution lies in the wider appreciation of the importance of symbiosis for maintaining life on Earth as we know it. Finally, I conclude by suggesting the importance of exploring the connections among contemporary biology, philosophy of biology and history of biology in order to gain a better understanding of contemporary biology. (shrink)

This article claims that communication within the same culture in the present and with the past and communication across cultures pose serious methodological challenges for philosophers. These challenges are particularly obvious when we engage in comparative philosophy between East and West. However, if (1) we understand philosophy as a discipline involved in problem solving, and (2) we use the Framework Approach advocated in this article, such communication does not seem impossible. Of course, this approach may not help us with the (...) challenges posed by the kind of philosophy that does not deal with problems. (shrink)

Several political theorists argue that states have rights to self-determination and these rights justify immigration restrictions. Call this: the self-determination argument for immigration restrictions. In this article, I develop an objection to the self-determination argument. I argue that if it is morally permissible for states to restrict immigration because they have rights to self-determination, then it can also be morally permissible for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens. We can either accept that it is permissible for states to (...) deport and denationalize their own citizens or reject the self-determination argument. To avoid this implication, we should reject the self-determination argument. That is, we should also reject the conclusion that rights to self-determination can justify any significant immigration restrictions. (shrink)

For many years I have maintained that I learned to philosophize by translating Francisco Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputation V from Latin into English. This surely is a claim that must sound extraordinary to the members of this audience or even to most twentieth century philosophers. Who reads Suárez these days? And what could I learn from a sixteenth century scholastic writer that would help me in the twentieth century? I would certainly be surprised if one were to find any references to (...) some of Suárez’s works in any of the works of twentieth-century major philosophers. One of the reasons for my claim is the great difficulty I had in figuring out what Suárez’s text means and how to render it understandable to English readers. Translating the text forced me to think in ways that were quite different from those I was used to think in Spanish, my native tongue, or English, my adoptive tongue. In fact, the translation I produced after having completed many drafts continued, and still continues to this day, to appear to me unsatisfactory, and that dissatisfaction was the key to understanding things I had understood very differently before. I hope to make clear why in what follows. The thesis that I defend is that semantic equivalence between texts of philosophy in different languages is difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to achieve and, therefore, that it is a mistake to restrict doing analytic philosophy to English, as Gustavo Rodríguez-Pereyra argues we should do in a recent article (2013). (shrink)

Racism has been the subject of considerable attention in recent years, and although many varieties of it have been identified and discussed, most of the discussions take insufficient account of the differences between the racial, ethnic, and national elements that play roles in it. Nonetheless, the talk of racism against members of ethnic and national groups is quite common and gives rise to misunderstandings and confusions about what racism is and the various forms it can take when these differences are (...) not explored. In this article, I explore racism in the contexts of race, ethnicity, and nationality in order to determine whether it makes sense in those contexts and, if it does, the differences and similarities between them. I argue that understandings of racism that pay insufficient attention to the differences that characterize racism arising from considerations of race, ethnicity, and nationality stand on the way of its eradication and prevention. I further argue that conceptions of race, ethnicity, and nationality that attempt to integrate them into mixed notions can make matters worse. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a new argument in defence bacterial species pluralism. To do so, I shall first present the particular issues derived from the conflict between the non-theoretical understanding of species as units of classification and the theoretical comprehension of them as units of evolution. Secondly, I shall justify the necessity of the concept of species for the bacterial world, and show how medicine and endosymbiotic evolutionary theory make use of different concepts of bacterial species due to their (...) distinctive purposes. Finally, I shall show how my argument provides a new source of defence for bacterial pluralism. (shrink)

Derek Parfit influentially defends reductionism about persons, the view that a person’s existence just consists in the existence of a brain and body and the occurrence of a series of physical and mental events. Yet some critics, particularly Mark Johnston, have raised powerful objections to Parfit’s reductionism. In this paper, I defend reductionism against Johnston. In particular, I defend a radical form of reductionism that Buddhist philosophers developed. Buddhist reductionism can justify key features of Parfit’s position, such as the claims (...) that personal identity is not what matters and can also be indeterminate. Furthermore, Buddhist reductionism can avoid Johnston’s objections to Parfit’s reductionism. I conclude that reductionists have good reasons to favor Buddhist reductionism over Parfit’s version. (shrink)

States heavily restrict immigration, and many people violate these restrictions. For example, unauthorized immigrants cross borders without official permission, and other actors, such as people smugglers, assist them in doing so. How should we evaluate resistance to immigration law from a moral perspective? In this article, I survey recent work on the ethics of resisting immigration law. In particular, I examine three categories of resistance to immigration law as the following: unauthorized immigration, people smuggling, and citizens' resistance to laws that (...) prohibit them from assisting or interacting with unauthorized immigrants. (shrink)

Political philosophy in the last decades has turned away from universal narratives of progress, on grounds that these narratives produce exclusion and justify domination. However, the universal values that underlie emancipatory political projects seem to presuppose universal history, which explains its persistence in some contemporary political philosophers committed to such projects. In order to find a response to the paradox according to which universal history is inherently exclusionary and yet necessary to uphold universal values, I examine the contrast between Adorno’s (...) and Lyotard’s perspectives on the problem of writing history ‘after Auschwitz’. For both philosophers, Auschwitz interrupts our fundamental normative and cognitive values, because any attempt to identify the meaning of the camps by means of these values misunderstands the suffering that took place in them. Yet this interruption produces a feeling that calls for the institution of new universal normative values. For Adorno, this value is a purely negative command to act in such a way that Auschwitz does not repeat itself. For Lyotard, by contrast, it is the demand to invent new idioms that make it possible to find meaning in Auschwitz. (shrink)

Philippe Huneman has recently questioned the widespread application of mechanistic models of scientific explanation based on the existence of structural explanations, i.e. explanations that account for the phenomenon to be explained in virtue of the mathematical properties of the system where the phenomenon obtains, rather than in terms of the mechanisms that causally produce the phenomenon. Structural explanations are very diverse, including cases like explanations in terms of bowtie structures, in terms of the topological properties of the system, or in (...) terms of equilibrium. The role of mathematics in bowtie structured systems and in topologically constrained systems has recently been examined in different papers. However, the specific role that mathematical properties play in equilibrium explanations requires further examination, as different authors defend different interpretations, some of them closer to the new-mechanistic approach than to the structural model advocated by Huneman. In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the explanatory role that mathematics play in Blaser and Kirschner’s nested equilibrium model of the stability of persistent long-term human-microbe associations. We argue that their model is explanatory because: i) it provides a mathematical structure in the form of a set of differential equations that together satisfy an ESS; ii) that the nested nature of the ESSs makes the explanation of host-microbe persistent associations robust to any perturbation; iii) that this is so because the properties of the ESS directly mirror the properties of the biological system in a non-causal way. The combination of these three theses make equilibrium explanations look more similar to structural explanations than to causal-mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

Suppose that it was possible to teletransport. The teletransporter would destroy your old brain and body and construct an identical brain and body at a new location. Would you survive teletransportation? Many people think that teletransportation would kill you. On their view, the person that emerges from the teletransporter would be a replica of you, but it wouldn't be you. In contrast, I argue that there's no relevant difference between teletransportation and ordinary survival. So, if you survive ordinary life, then (...) you survive teletransportation. Yet my argument may also show that we have little prudential reason to care about our survival in general. (shrink)

A large body of evidence suggests that the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) improves learning. In courses that use PSI, the material is divided into units, students must pass a test on each unit before advancing to the next unit, there’s no group-level instruction, and students advance in the course at their own pace. While studies find that PSI improves learning outcomes in a wide range of settings, researchers haven’t studied the effectiveness of PSI in critical thinking classes. In this (...) paper, I argue that teaching critical thinking with PSI can effectively promote critical thinking skills. I describe a course that uses PSI to teach critical thinking and I present evidence from pre- and post-tests that indicates that students substantially improved their reasoning skills in this course. I also discuss the costs and drawbacks of using this method of instruction and consider ways of addressing these problems. (shrink)

The hologenome concept of evolution is a hypothesis about the evolution of animals and plants. It asserts that the evolution of animals and plants was partially triggered by their interactions with their symbiotic microbiomes. In that vein, the hologenome concept posits that the holobiont (animal host + symbionts of the microbiome) is a unit of selection. -/- The hologenome concept has been severely criticized on the basis that selection on holobionts would only be possible if there were a tight transgenerational (...) host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. As our current evidence suggests that this is not the case for most of the symbiont species that compose the microbiome of animals and plants, the opportunity for holobiont selection is very low in relation to the opportunity for selection on each of the species that compose the host microbiome. Therefore, holobiont selection will always be disrupted ‘from below’, by selection on each of the species that compose the microbiome. -/- This thesis constitutes a conceptual effort to defend philosophically the hologenome concept. I argue that the criticism according to which holobiont selection requires tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection is grounded on a metaphysical view of the world according to which the biological hierarchy needs to be nested, such that each new level of selection includes every entity from below. Applied to hologenomes, it entails that the hologenome is a collection of genomes, and selection of hologenomes is assumed to entail cospeciation of the host with the species that constitute its microbiome. -/- Against that interpretation, I propose the ‘stability of traits’ account, according to which hologenome evolution is the result of the action of natural selection in a non-nested hierarchical world. In that vein, hologenome evolution does not entail cospeciation, and thus it does not require tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. By embracing a multilevel selection perspective, I argue that hologenome evolution results from the simultaneous action of natural selection on each of the lineages that compose the microbiome, and on the assemblage composed by the host genome plus the functional traits of its microbiome. Hologenome selection occurs when the evolution of the traits of the microbiome result from their effects on the fitness of the host, and it can take the form of multilevel selection 1, or multilevel selection 2. In both cases, hologenome selection entails the evolution of microbiome traits, as well as evolution of the host genome, rather than cospeciation of lineages. (shrink)

In contrast to Buddhist Reductionists who deny the ultimate existence of the persons, Buddhist Personalists claim that persons are ultimately real in some important sense. Recently, some philosophers have offered philosophical reconstructions of Buddhist Personalism. In this paper, I critically evaluate one philosophical reconstruction of Buddhist Personalism according to which persons are irreducible to the parts that constitute them. Instead, persons are emergent entities and have novel properties that are distinct from the properties of their constituents. While this emergentist interpretation (...) is an interesting and well-motivated reconstruction of the Personalist position, I ultimately reject it on substantive grounds. I distinguish between different kinds of emergentism in the contemporary philosophical literature and show that they fail to support Buddhist Personalism. I thus conclude that Buddhist Personalism is untenable if it’s committed to emergentism about persons. This paper also indirectly defends Buddhist Reductionism by showing that it has crucial advantages over Buddhist Personalism. (shrink)

Several noted economists and prominent international organizations have recently advocated for the implementation of guest worker programs in developed states. Their primary argument is that guest worker programs would serve as a powerful mechanism for reducing global poverty and inequality. For example, economist Dani Rodrik estimates that guest worker programs in wealthy states would generate $200 billion or more annually for poor countries. According to Rodrik, liberalizing the temporary movement of workers would “produce the largest possible gains for the world (...) economy and for poor countries in particular,” in comparison with other policies, such as trade liberalization. (shrink)

This article develops a dilemma for Buddhist Reductionism that centers on the nature of normative reasons. This dilemma suggests that Buddhist Reductionism lacks the resources to make sense of normative reasons and, furthermore, that this failure may cast doubt on the plausibility of Buddhist Reductionism as a whole.

Ontic Structural Realism, as pivotal position in philosophy of science and metaphysics, defends the idea that the world is ultimately constituted of real physical structures. French (2014) regards physical symmetries as the foundational structure of a world without objects. On the other hand, Ladyman and Ross (2007) hold that the world is essentially made of non-redundant informational structure. I argue in this paper that these two positions are by no means incompatible, for instance by interpreting French’s physical symmetries as real (...) structures both encompassing and compressing every piece of information (Kolmogorov complexity) within the world. (shrink)

This essay explains why there are good reasons to practice philosophy as a way of life. The argument begins with the assumption that we should live well but that our understanding of how to live well can be mistaken. Philosophical reason and reflection can help correct these mistakes. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that philosophical reasoning often fails to change our dispositions and behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, the essay claims that spiritual exercises and communal engagement mitigate the (...) factors that prevent us from living in accord- ance with our conceptions of the good life. So, many of us have reasons to engage in philosophical reasoning along with behavioral, cognitive, and social strategies to alter our behavior and attitudes so that they’re in line with our philosophical commitments. In these respects, many of us should practice philosophy as a way of life. (shrink)

An understanding of the factors behind the evolution of multicellularity is one of today’s frontiers in evolutionary biology. This is because multicellular organisms are made of one subset of cells with the capacity to transmit genes to the next generation and another subset responsible for maintaining the functionality of the organism, but incapable of transmitting genes to the next generation. The question arises: why do somatic cells sacrifice their lives for the sake of germline cells? How is germ/soma separation maintained? (...) One conventional answer refers to inclusive fitness theory, according to which somatic cells sacrifice themselves altruistically, because in so doing they enhance the transmission of their genes by virtue of their genetic relatedness to germline cells. In the present article we will argue that this explanation ignores the key role of policing mechanisms in maintaining the germ/soma divide. Based on the pervasiveness of the latter, we argue that the role of altruistic mechanisms in the evolution of multicellularity is limited and that our understanding of this evolution must be enriched through the consideration of coercion mechanisms. (shrink)

Some bioethicists and political philosophers argue that rich states should restrict the immigration of health workers from poor countries in order to prevent harm to people in these countries. In this essay, I argue that restrictions on the immigration of health workers are unjust, even if this immigration results in bad health outcomes for people in poor countries. I contend that negative duties to refrain from interfering with the occupational liberties of health workers outweighs rich states' positive duties to prevent (...) harm to people in sending countries. Furthermore, I defend this claim against the objection that health workers in poor countries acquire special duties to their compatriots that render them liable to coercive interference. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to offer a reconstruction of the moral theory defended by Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, aided by other contemporary texts that contribute to explain and refine such a theory. The first step of this reconstruction is to show that Callicles offers a perspectivist theory of moral judgements, according to which moral judgements can be issued from two radically distinct perspectives, the contractual and the natural one. The second step is to show that Callicles makes use (...) of a peculiar conception of nature that allows him to claim that certain natural rights and privileges stemming from the natural perspective of valuation must override those rights stemming from the contractual perspective. The resulting theory, as well as being worthy of philosophical interest, does not appear to be vulnerable to most of the objections advanced by the dominant interpretations, nor does it entail the implausible sort of hedonism that Plato attributes to Callicles in this dialogue. (shrink)

In this chapter we discuss the role of what we call "reasonableness" in a philosophy summer camp held at Southern Utah University. "Reasonableness," as we call it, is a more narrowly prescribed form of rationality - indeed one can be rational but unreasonable, but not the other way around. We discuss the importance and value of introducing philosophy to students before they get to college, and describe some of the challenges we face in introducing students in SW Utah to philosophy.

Item analysis is a general term that refers to the specific methods used in education to evaluate test items, typically for the purpose of test construction and revision. Construction and analysis of science examinations in high school curricula needs the integration of integrated process and skill type which help students develop their rational and logical thinking. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the comparative results of item analyses using Rasch Model Analysis and SPSS. It examined the reliability, mean difficulty, mean (...) ability, discrimination index, mean trend scores, infit and misfit, and item-person and fit maps using the results of the Basic & Integrated Science Process and Skill Test (BISPST) administered to secondary science high school teachers in the Division of Nueva Vizcaya. The Rasch Model Analysis and SPSS revealed the same unsatisfactory value of internal consistency or the reliability coefficient Cronbach’s alpha (0.66 and 0.67), mean score (19.52) and standard deviation (4.53) of the BISPST. The mean item difficulty was set at 0 by definition (SD = 2.02) and the mean examinee ability was 1.56 (SD = 0.98), which means that the examinees were able to correctly answer 61% of items on average. 33 items with difficulty lower than the least able examinee. The mean ability using Rasch Model Analysis per item showed that high performers in the test got the correct answers compared to the low performing group. This is the same and consistent with the results of the mean trend scores of the upper, middle and lower groups as generated by the SPSS. Choices in the BISPST were found to be effective distracters. Although most items needs revision as revealed by the values generated by both softwares, no items were found to be misfit in the distribution. (shrink)

The debate regarding the nature of joint action has come to a stalemate due to a dependence on intuitional methods. Normativists, such as Margaret Gilbert, argue that action-relative normative relations are inherent in joint action, while non-normativists, such as Michael Bratman, claim that there are minimal cases of joint action without normative relations. In this work, we describe the first experimental examinations of these intuitions, and report the results of six studies that weigh in favor of the normativist paradigm. Philosophical (...) ramifications and further extensions of this work are then discussed. (shrink)

In his Encomium of Helen, Gorgias provides us with a variety of arguments in order to show that Helen was not to be held accountable for having eloped with Paris. The main thesis advanced in this article is that these arguments, despite their apparent diversity, are given a unitary structure by the concept of force, and by the analogy that Gorgias estalishes between persuasion, the emotions, and sense-perception on the one hand, and this concept on the other. If this argument (...) is successful, it shows that practically none of our actions are such that we are morally responsible for them. I discuss the cogency of this argument in connection with Aristotle’s objections to it. (shrink)

En Die Sache selbst (PhG, pp. 333 ss.), Hegel expone la pretensión de un individuo racional según la cual puede expresar su propia “naturaleza en el obrar” (Siep, 2015, p. 161). Esta es entendida por el individuo en función de su fidelidad a un estado mental interno al agente; esta posición ha sido llamada “compatibilismo” (Pippin, 2008, p. 148). No obstante, Hegel sostiene que la causa de dicha acción no puede ser realmente fiel a su naturaleza a menos que el (...) individuo sea consciente de su contexto social. (shrink)

The units or levels of selection debate concerns the question of what kind of biological systems are stable enough that part of their evolution is a result of the process of natural selection acting at their level. Traditionally, the debate has concerned at least two different, though related, questions: the question of the level at which interaction with the environment occurs, and the question of the level at which reproduction occurs. In recent years, biologists and philosophers have discussed a new (...) aspect of this debate, namely the possibility that certain multi-species consortia formed by a host and its microbiome may act as a unit of selection. This thesis, however, has not been without criticism, as it is doubtful that such consortia could meet the conditions required to achieve the degree of stability that would allow them to experience natural selection. The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine such criticisms and to defend the thesis that the holobiont/hologenome can act as a genuine level of selection both in the form of an interactor and in the form of a reproducer. To do so, it will be argued that the microbiome should be characterized in functional rather than taxonomic terms. (shrink)