The general aim of this article is to carry out a reconstruction of the theory of Population Dynamics (DP) in Ecology, according to Castle’s (2001) general stance with regard to the semantic view of theories, but doing it within the framework of metatheoretical structuralism. Thus, we will first identify Population Dynamics’ basic theory-element: its core K(DP) – with the class of potential models, the class of models (through the identification of its fundamental law) and the class of partial potential models (...) (though leaving aside the identification of its constraints and its intertheoretical links) –, and its domain of intended applications I(DP). Then, we will establish the general guiding lines of its theory-net, developing in some detail one of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “continuous growing” of the considered populations –, with DP’s principal “models”, and leave developing of the other of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “discrete growing” of the considered populations – for a further publication. (shrink)

Resumen La discusión de las políticas culturales del duelo ofrecida por Judith Butler tras los atentados del 11 de septiembre servirá aquí para cuestionar las fracturas sexuales, genéricas y raciales, entre otras, que rigen la inteligibilidad cultural de la vulnerabilidad compartida en contextos pandémicos. Esta revisión de la idea de comunidad se pondrá en relación con el desarrollo de la medicina social urbana explorado por Michel Foucault para deslocalizar la resistencia a los procesos de estigmatización y normalización puestos en marcha (...) por la pandemia del sida para pensar, hoy, las biopolíticas emergentes en nombre del cuidado de la salud colectiva. -/- Abstract The discussion of the cultural politics of mourning offered by Judith Butler after the September 11 attacks will serve here to question the sexual, gender and racial fractures, among others, that govern the cultural intelligibility of shared vulnerability in pandemic contexts. This review of the idea of community will be related to the development of urban social medicine explored by Michel Foucault to delocalize the resistance to the stigmatization and normalization processes set in motion by the AIDS pandemic to think, today, emerging biopolitics in name of public health. (shrink)

This paper addresses some relations between the spatial politics of queer assemblies in spaces of protest and the constitution of collective political subjects. It does so by exploring the spatial politics of queer activism within the global Occupy movements, in the light of Judith Butler’s work on the performative power of assembly and the ambivalences of the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia. Specific challenges faced by queer activists in various encampments will be addressed in order to expose some tensions between the (...) constitutive exclusions inherent to the constitution of spaces of protest and the processes of coalition building needed to effectively overcome those very constitutive exclusions. (shrink)

Resumo O presente texto parte das reflexões de Judith Butler sobre as políticas de coabitação, assim como das suas mais recentes aportações sobre a performatividade da assembleia, para explorar os efeitos da adoção de estratégias separatistas sobre as políticas de alian- ças da dissidência sexogenérica e relacional. A reflexão parte de uma leitura crítica dos modos de produção dos espaços de convergência e coligação dos ativismos queer e transfeministas da cidade de Madrid, com o objetivo de defender umas políticas espa- (...) ciais e temporais comprometidas com o seu próprio desbordamento crítico. (shrink)

Altruism and solidarity are concepts that are closely related to organ donation for transplantation. On the one hand, they are typically used for encouraging people to donate. On the other hand, they also underpin the regulations in force in each country to different extents. They are often used indistinctly and equivocally, despite the different ethical implications of each concept. This paper aims to clarify to what extent we can speak of altruism and solidarity in the predominant models of organ donation. (...) It also raises the ethical question of whether these categories are adequate as a basis for such models, bearing in mind that organs are a scarce resource and that a shortage of them may mean that fewer lives are saved or improved. (shrink)

El presente artículo se desarrolla en dos direcciones temporales opuestas. En la primera recurro a la contracultura drag negra y latina de los Estados Unidos para releer la negativa de Rosa Parks a ceder su asiento en el autobús. A continuación, se plantea una genealogía queer de los usos de la teatralidad en las formas contemporáneas del activismo urbano. A partir del encuentro entre ambas líneas temporales defiendo, en diálogo con la obra reciente de Judith Butler, la importancia de la (...) dimensión performativa de las intervenciones individuales en espacios de protesta para entender el alcance movilizador de la acción colectiva. (shrink)

El ciclo de protestas que se abrió en las primaveras árabes ha servido para revitalizar la reflexión teórica sobre el modo en que los procesos de agenciamiento político son indisociables de los modos de producción de los espacios de coalición. Es el caso de Judith Butler en Cuerpos aliados y lucha política, junto con otras autoras que han mostrado la importancia de pensar los modos de encuentro corporal, y las políticas de acceso a los espacios de aparición, como parte central (...) de la lucha y la reflexión política. En diálogo con estas y otras provocaciones teóricas, fundamentalmente en el ámbito de los estudios queer, este ensayo explora los modos de producción del espacio de coalición transfeminista y queer a partir de experiencias activistas recientes en la ciudad de Madrid. -/- The cycle of protests opened by the Arab Springs has served to revitalize theoretical reflections on the interplay between the construction of political agency and the production of coalitional spaces. This is the case of Judith Butler in Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street, along with other authors that have shown the importance of thinking bodily encounter, and the politics of accessibility to the space of appearance, as a central part of political reflection and struggle. In dialogue with these and other theoretical provocations, specially coming from Queer Studies, this essay explores the modes of production of the space of transfeminist and queer coalition drawing on recent activist experiences in the city of Madrid. (shrink)

En la actualidad hay un renacer del interés académico por la amistad que se aborda desde múltiples disciplinas, tales como la Sociología (Spencer & Pahl, 2006), la Psicología (Hojjat & Moyer, 2017), la educación (Kristjánsson, 2022), la Política (Digeser, 2016) o las Relaciones Internacionales (Koschut & Oelsner, 2014). En filosofía, la amistad es un tema clásico que se ha abordado con interés variable en distintos momentos de la historia: para griegos y romanos fue relevante a nivel personal y político (Aristóteles, (...) 1994); los pre-modernos la concibieron como un vínculo fundamental para la estabilidad política y la administración de la justicia (Smith & Devere, 2010) y en la Ilustración siguió considerándose un vínculo valioso. A partir del siglo XIX se oscurece su papel social (Laín Entralgo, 1986) y solo a finales del XX se retoma su valor en el ámbito social, más allá del personal (Derrida, 1998). A pesar de esa atención renovada a la amistad, las investigaciones desde la antropología filosófica o la metafísica son hoy menos frecuentes que otras como las que se hacen desde la ética o la filosofía política, por lo que es relevante prestarle atención desde esta perspectiva que es la elegida en este capítulo. El objetivo es repensar la amistad en Leonardo Polo desde su antropología trascendental partiendo de una confluencia interesante entre este filósofo y Agamben: la apertura ontológica al plano existencial (trascendental, en terminología poliana). Argumentaré cómo, en continuidad con la antropología trascendental y prosiguiendo el pensamiento de Polo, la amistad puede incluirse de alguna forma en el ámbito trascendental, puede ser un “amor personal” que, como tal, radica en la persona, muestra a la persona y la hace crecer. De acuerdo con eso, la estructura del capítulo es la siguiente: explicaremos la confluencia metafísica entre ambos filósofos y el papel de la amistad en la apertura al ámbito existencial (epígrafe 2); seguiremos con los elementos de la antropología trascendental que permiten proseguir pensando la amistad (epígrafe 3); estudiaremos el amar personal y la posibilidad de los “amores personales” (epígrafe 4) y finalmente abordaremos la amistad como amor personal. (shrink)

Replies to commentators Respuestas a los comentarios críticos de Carlos Patarroyo, Mirja Pérez de Calleja y Pablo Rychter.

The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) provides that “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” We show that the UDDA contains two conflicting interpretations of the phrase “cessation of functions.” By one interpretation, what matters for the determination of death is the cessation of spontaneous functions only, regardless of their generation by artificial means. By the (...) other, what matters is the cessation of both spontaneous and artificially supported functions. Because each UDDA criterion uses a different interpretation, the law is conceptually inconsistent. A single consistent interpretation would lead to the conclusion that conscious individuals whose respiratory and circulatory functions are artificially supported are actually dead, or that individuals whose brain is entirely and irreversibly destroyed may be alive. We explore solutions to mitigate the inconsistency. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of dignity for our understanding of the rights of workers. It surveys important uses of the idea of dignity in several discursive contexts, and offers an interpretation that illuminates the content, scope, and normative force of labor rights. The discursive contexts considered include human rights, socialism, Kantian practical philosophy, and Christian social thought. The interpretation of dignity offered illuminates basic rights to decent conditions in which workers for example choose their occupation, receive adequate remuneration, and (...) are able to form unions to defend their interests. It is also illuminates more ambitious rights to work in ways that fully further workers’ interests in flourishing and involve avoidance or minimization of their domination, exploitation, and alienation. (shrink)

Can we experience emotion without the feeling of accelerated heartbeats, perspiration, or other changes in the body? In his paper “What is an emotion”, William James famously claimed that “if we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind” (1884, p. 193). Thus, bodily changes are essential to emotion. This is known as the Subtraction Argument. The Subtraction Argument is still (...) used to support Embodied theories of emotion. Proponents of Disembodied theories, however, have different intuitions regarding the role of bodily changes in the experience of emotion. In order to advance this debate, I conducted a series of studies testing people’s intuitions regarding the Subtraction Argument. Results show that, against James’ claims, most people consider that their hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) emotions persist in the absence of bodily feelings. Furthermore, Study 1 found that participants’ responses were not related to individual differences in reflection or interoceptive awareness. These results pose a problem for Embodied theories of emotion and challenge extant explanations for the persistence of emotional experience in cases of impaired interoception. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of types is most often associated with his account of perception. Here, types operate as pre-predicative frames of experience that guide the perception of objects. In this paper, I will argue that Husserl’s theory of types is also central to his account of intersubjectivity. More specifically, I will show that a foundational kind of typical subjectivity is entailed by his discussion of the sphere of ownness. It is by way of this type that even a solitary subject can (...) tacitly anticipate the possibility of other subjects. It is also this type that is enriched through interactions between actual subjects. (shrink)

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. In (...) four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

El propósito central del presente artículo, es formular un enfoque sistémico-jurídico para el análisis de los sistemas sociales. Para esto, se proponen tres tipologías de consensos denominados límites del sistema social: consenso normal, consenso normativo y consenso legítimo. La función de estas tipologías es, primero elaborar una explicación sobre la constitucionalización y democratización del poder político, con base en la regla de reconocimiento y la norma fundamental de un Estado; segundo postular dos metodologías normativas, un registro positivo y una demarcación (...) positiva, que desplieguen, tanto sobre las conductas sociales como sobre la estructura del sistema social, un proceso de legalidad emergente, cuya función sea, tercero regular, realimentar y optimizar el funcionamiento de la constitución política. Finalmente, se analizan los conceptos de completitud y de legitimidad del sistema normativo, con el fin de definir el alcance institucional que debe poseer un sistema jurídico sobre los subsistemas culturales del sistema social. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, David Chalmers introduced the meta-problem of consciousness as “the problem of explaining why we think consciousness poses a hard problem” (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). A solution to the meta-problem could shed light on the hard problem of consciousness. In particular, it would be relevant to elucidate whether people’s problem intuitions (i.e. intuitions holding that conscious experience cannot be reduced to physical processes) are driven by factors related to the nature of consciousness, or rather (...) by factors that are independent of consciousness. Whether people hold problem intuitions, and what factors drive those intuitions, are largely empirical questions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on these issues to date. The results of four studies will show that (1) problem intuitions are not widespread, and (2) when they arise, they do so because of factors that are unrelated to the nature of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is, after all, not so problematic. (shrink)

Are feelings an essential part or aspect of emotion? Cases of unconscious emotion suggest that this is not the case. However, it has been claimed that unconscious emotions are better understood as either (a) emotions that are phenomenally conscious but not reflectively conscious, or (b) dispositions to have emotions rather than emotions proper. Here, I argue that these ways of accounting for unconscious emotions are inadequate, and propose a view of emotions as non-phenomenal attitudes that regard their contents as relevant (...) to one's motivations. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will summarize recent empirical results highlighting how different groups of people solve pure coordination games. Such games are traditionally studied in behavioural economics, where two people need to coordinate without communicating with each other. Our results suggest that coordination choices vary across groups of people, and that people can adapt flexibly to these differences in order to coordinate between groups. We propose that pure coordination games are a useful empirical platform for studying aspects of mindshaping. Drawing (...) on existing psychological literature on alignment during interactions, we suggest that experience of successful interaction leads people to develop aligned intuitions about what is relevant and appropriate that support coordination when interaction and communication is not possible. Consistent with arguments made in the literature on mindshaping we believe that such alignment is more important for coordination than mindreading inferences about mental states, and indeed that mindreading is instead a form of coordination behaviour that is dependent upon intuitive alignment. (shrink)

Sacrificial dilemmas such as the trolley problem play an important role in experimental philosophy (x-phi). But it is increasingly argued that, since we are not likely to encounter runaway trolleys in our daily life, the usefulness of such thought experiments for understanding moral judgments in more ecologically valid contexts may be limited. However, similar sacrificial dilemmas are experienced in real life by animal research decision makers. As part of their job, they must make decisions about the suffering, and often the (...) death, of many non-human animals. For this reason, a context-specific investigation of so-called “3R dilemmas” (i.e., dilemmas where there is a conflict between the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in research) is essential to improve the situation of both non-human animals and human stakeholders. An approach well suited for such investigation is experimental philosophical bioethics (“bioxphi”), which draws on methods similar to x-phi to probe more realistic, practical scenarios with an eye to informing normative debates and ethical policy. In this article, we argue for a need to investigate 3R dilemmas among professional decision-makers using the tools of bioxphi. In a first step, we define 3R dilemmas and discuss previous investigations of professionals’ attitudes in such cases. In a second step, we show how bioxphi is a promising method to investigate the whys and hows of professional decision-making in 3R dilemmas. In a last step, we provide a bioxphi template for 3R dilemmas, give recommendations on its use, explore the normative relevance of data collected by such means, and discuss important limitations. (shrink)

Pérez Carballo adopts an epistemic utility theory picture of epistemic norms where epistemic utility functions measure the value of degrees of belief, and rationality consists in maximizing expected epistemic utility. Within this framework he seeks to show that we can make sense of the intuitive idea that some true beliefs—say true beliefs about botany—are more valuable than other true beliefs—say true beliefs about the precise number of plants in North Dakota. To do so, however, Pérez Carballo argues that (...) we must think of the value of epistemic states as consisting in more than simply accuracy. This sheds light on which questions it is most epistemically valuable to pursue. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objeto llevar a cabo un estudio pragmático y analítico sobre la acción de valoración, el valor y los valores a la luz de la ciencia semiótica y de la ciencia cibernética. Por ello, se desarrollará un proceso axiológico que ilustre cómo sucede el ingreso, la transición y la salida de códigos morales en función de un esquema cognitivo. Así pues, el proceso axiológico se postula, primero, en fundamento de tres sistemas: de mentalidad, de valores y (...) de biomoralidad y, segundo, conforme a la teoría de la información y de la teoría general de sistemas. (shrink)

Although Husserlian phenomenology appears to require that practitioners bracket all metaphysical questions and claims, this requirement runs against the evidence of experience in which objects themselves are presented as constituents of experience. Moreover, to completely bracket metaphysical considerations would suggest that phenomenology is compatible with metaphysical views it should in principle deny. Nonetheless, permitting metaphysical claims threatens to contravene the critical limits of phenomenology, to invite claims that would require a perspective different in kind than our own to verify. These (...) tensions raise an important question, namely, what are the metaphysical implications of the phenomenologically intuitive claim that objects themselves are constituents of experience? To answer this question, I draw on a broad swath of thought on transcendental idealism and phenomenology. I argue that a modest metaphysics of appearance is warranted within the critical limits of Husserlian phenomenology. Through discussing and addressing the problems that typically plague transcendental arguments, I show that Husserlian phenomenology permits stronger claims about objects of experience than deflationary accounts allow but does not permit claims about intrinsic properties allowed by some forms of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Are emotions bodily feelings or evaluative cognitions? What is happiness, pain, or “being moved”? Are there basic emotions? In this chapter, I review extant empirical work concerning these and related questions in the philosophy of emotion. This will include both (1) studies investigating people’s emotional experiences and (2) studies investigating people’s use of emotion concepts in hypothetical cases. Overall, this review will show the potential of using empirical research methods to inform philosophical questions regarding emotion.

Laura Specker Sullivan (2022) makes a fairly compelling case for the value of the perspectives of Buddhist practitioners in neuroethics. In this study, Tibetan Buddhist monks have been asked, among other things, whether consciousness, in brain-injured patients in a minimally conscious state, entails a duty to preserve life. In our view, some of the participants’ responses could be used to inform the bioethical debate on death determination.

In emotion research, both conceptual analyses and empirical studies commonly rely on emotion reports. But what do people mean when they say that they are angry, afraid, joyful, etc.? Building on extant theories of emotion, this paper presents four new studies (including a pre-registered replication) measuring the weight of cognitive evaluations, bodily changes, and action tendencies in people’s use of emotion concepts. The results of these studies suggest that the presence or absence of cognitive evaluations has the largest impact on (...) people’s emotion attributions, and that bodily changes and action tendencies are considered to depend on cognitive evaluations. Implications for theories of emotion (concepts) and the interpretation of emotion reports are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a quasi-transcendental argument to justify Kant’s infamous claim “man is evil by nature.” The cornerstone of my reconstruction lies in drawing a systematic distinction between the seemingly identical concepts of “evil disposition” (böseGesinnung) and “propensity to evil” (Hang zumBösen). The former, I argue, Kant reserves to describe the fundamental moral outlook of a single individual; the latter, the moral orientation of the whole species. Moreover, the appellative “evil” ranges over two different types of moral failure: (...) while an “evil disposition” is a failure to realize the good (i.e., to adopt the motive of duty as limiting condition for all one’s desires), an “evil propensity” is a failure to realize the highest good (i.e., to engage in the collective project of transforming the legal order into an ethical community). This correlation between units of moral analysis and types of obligation suggests a way to offer a deduction of the universal propensity on behalf of Kant. It consists in tracing the source of radical evil to the same subjective necessity that gives rise to the doctrine of the highest good. For, at the basis of Kant’s two doctrines lies the same natural dialectic between happiness and morality. While the highest good brings about the critically acceptable resolution of this dialectic, the propensity to evil perpetuates and aggravates it. Instead of connecting happiness and morality in an objective relation, the human will subordinatesmorality to the pursuit of happiness according to the subjective order of association. If this reading is correct, it would explain why prior attempts at a transcendental deduction have failed: interpreters have looked for the key to the deduction in the body of Kant’s text, where it is not to be found, for it is tucked, instead, in the Preface to the first edition. (shrink)

In this work we argue that there is no strong demarcation between pure and applied mathematics. We show this first by stressing non-deductive components within pure mathematics, like axiomatization and theory-building in general. We also stress the “purer” components of applied mathematics, like the theory of the models that are concerned with practical purposes. We further show that some mathematical theories can be viewed through either a pure or applied lens. These different lenses are tied to different communities, which endorse (...) different evaluative standards for theories. We evaluate the distinction between pure and applied mathematics from a late Wittgensteinian perspective. We note that the classical exegesis of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, due to Maddy, leads to a clear-cut but misguided demarcation. We then turn our attention to a more niche interpretation of Wittgenstein by Dawson, which captures aspects of the aforementioned distinction more accurately. Building on this newer, maverick interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, and endorsing an extended notion of meaning as use which includes social, mundane uses, we elaborate a fuzzy, but more realistic, demarcation. This demarcation, relying on family resemblance, is based on how direct and intended technical applications are, the kind of evaluative standards featured, and the range of rhetorical purposes at stake. (shrink)

El arte no es solamente una fuente inagotable de goce estético, es además una huella, una evidencia de nuestro pasado histórico. A partir del arte es posible remitirnos a nuestra raíz cultural, y es por eso que la obra artística constituye una parte importante del patrimonio de un pueblo. Es evidente el estrecho vínculo entre el patrimonio artístico y la identidad cultural; por eso es importante dar un justo valor a ese patrimonio que, a su vez, se reflejará en la (...) consolidación de una identidad propia. De esas expresiones tomamos únicamente las de la arquitectura de algunas iglesias barrocas. En ellas podemos notar una serie de variables del mestizaje cultural. La arquitectura del barroco novohispano, como uno de los lenguajes del arte, generó una reflexión sobre la identidad del individuo iberoamericano. (shrink)

This book provides a historical and theoretical analysis of the Ayotzinapa social movement from the perspective of Latin American philosophy. The author addresses questions such as how a social movement is born, how (and if) the distinct social movement organizations should be defined, and what (if any) should be the extent of these organizations.

Choreographing Space is a reflection on the collaborative work of e+i studio, a New York City based architecture practice. Founders Eva Perez de Vega and Ian Gordon guide the reader through a dynamic selection of projects, each one opening us up to their relationship with the choreography of human and nonhuman forces at play. -/- Born as a retrospective and future-oriented book, it engages philosophical thought with architectural projects located in Europe, Asia, and the US, as well as speculative scenarios (...) that offer an alternative, less human-centric way of practicing architecture. -/- Organised into four parts, each part opens with a philosophical text that acts as an insightful prelude to the topics, questions and reflections posed by each project. Each part concludes with a speculative scenario, where one of the projects is imagined thriving in a future where life is now almost extinct. These are not intended as apocalyptic or even nostalgic scenarios, but rather as affirmative alternatives to the bleak imaginary arising from the world’s current climate crisis. (shrink)

It is often claimed that fear has an important epistemological function in making us aware of danger. Reactive theories challenge this view. According to them, fear is a response to real or apparent danger. In other words, real or apparent danger is the reason for which we experience fear. Thus, fear depends on awareness of danger instead of making us aware of danger. Proponents of the reactive theory have appealed to phenomenological and, most prominently, linguistic observations to support their views. (...) In particular, they argue that how we talk about the objects of fear supports the view that fear is a response (rather than a perception), and that how we talk about reasons for fear supports the view that reasons for fear are necessarily evaluative (about danger). Building on systematic linguistic observations in the form of corpus analyses and survey data, we argue that how we talk about the objects of fear and how we talk about reasons for fear do not support the reactive theory. Indeed, these linguistic considerations undermine the reactive theory. Most importantly, they suggest that there are non-evaluative reasons for fear. This is good news for rival theories, like perceptual theories, which hold that emotions have epistemic value in contributing to knowledge of evaluative properties such as danger. (shrink)

Se aplicó el asistente de prueba Tree Proof Generator (TPG) para determinar la corrección lógica de la primera vía tomista sobre la existencia de Dios, así como la corrección de algunas relaciones conceptuales en metafísica modal (necesidad y posibilidad), en epistemología (conocimiento) y en la formulación estructural del árbol de Porfirio. La investigación procura no solo abordar las tesis en cuestión desde el punto de vista computacional, sino que ofrece un marco reflexivo sobre tres condiciones necesarias para una filosofía asistida (...) por computadora; en tal sentido, la investigación se compromete con la idea de que la filosofía es análisis conceptual y argumentación, que pensar filosóficamente no supone un privilegio epistémico o cognitivo y que se requiere de un lenguaje formalmente especificable para ‘hacer’ filosofía. (shrink)

It is common in political theory and practice to challenge normatively ambitious proposals by saying that their fulfillment is not feasible. But there has been insufficient conceptual exploration of what feasibility is, and very little substantive inquiry into why and how it matters for thinking about social justice. This paper provides one of the first systematic treatments of these issues, and proposes a dynamic approach to the relation between justice and feasibility that illuminates the importance of political imagination and dynamic (...) duties to expand agents’ power to fulfill ambitious principles of justice. (shrink)

Do moral beliefs motivate action? To answer this question, extant arguments have considered hypothetical cases of association (dissociation) between agents’ moral beliefs and actions. In this paper, I argue that this approach can be improved by studying people’s actual moral beliefs and actions using empirical research methods. I present three new studies showing that, when the stakes are high, associations between participants’ moral beliefs and actions are actually explained by co-occurring but independent moral emotions. These findings suggest that moral beliefs (...) themselves have little or no motivational force, supporting the Humean picture of moral motivation. (shrink)

Substructural approaches to paradoxes have attracted much attention from the philosophical community in the last decade. In this paper we focus on two substructural logics, named ST and TS, along with two structural cousins, LP and K3. It is well known that LP and K3 are duals in the sense that an inference is valid in one logic just in case the contrapositive is valid in the other logic. As a consequence of this duality, theories based on either logic are (...) tightly connected since many of the arguments for and objections against one theory reappear in the other theory in dual form. The target of the paper is making explicit in exactly what way, if any, ST and TS are dual to one another. The connection will allow us to gain a more fine-grained understanding of these logics and of the theories based on them. In particular, we will obtain new insights on two questions concerning ST which are being intensively discussed in the current literature: whether ST preserves classical logic and whether it is LP in sheep’s clothing. Explaining in what way ST and TS are duals requires comparing these logics at a metainferential level. We provide to this end a uniform proof theory to decide on valid metainferences for each of the four logics. This proof procedure allows us to show in a very simple way how different properties of inferences (unsatisfiability, supersatisfiability and antivalidity) that behave in very different ways for each logic can be captured in terms of the validity of a metainference. (shrink)

Testimonial injustices occur when individuals from particular social groups are systematically and persistently given less credibility in their claims merely because of their group identity. Recent “pluralistic” approaches to folk psychology, by taking into account the role of stereotypes in how we understand others, have the power to explain how and why cases of testimonial injustice occur. If how we make sense of others’ behavior depends on assumptions about how individuals from certain groups think and act, this can explain why (...) speakers are given different degrees of credibility depending on their group identity. For example, if people assume that women are more emotional than men, they will systematically give less credibility to women’s claims. This explanation involves three empirical claims: people assume that women are more emotional than men, people assume that emotionality hinders credibility, and people give less credibility to women’s claims. While extant studies provide some support for and, no study to date has directly tested. In two different studies, we tested all these three claims. The results from both studies provide support for, as we found significant negative correlations between emotionality and credibility attributions. However, in contrast to what some accounts of folk psychology posit, we did not find any significant difference in people’s attributions of emotionality and credibility towards women versus men speakers. We hope that our studies here pave the way for further empirical studies testing the phenomenon of testimonial injustice in a context-sensitive way, in order to have a better understanding of the conditions in which testimonial injustices are likely to happen. (shrink)

Human emotional expressions can communicate the emotional state of the expresser, but they can also communicate appeals to perceivers. For example, sadness expressions such as crying request perceivers to aid and support, and anger expressions such as shouting urge perceivers to back off. Some contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems can mimic human emotional expressions in a (more or less) realistic way, and they are progressively being integrated into our daily lives. How should we respond to them? Do we have reasons (...) to reply to the appeals made by AI emotional expressions? In this paper, we examine the conditions under which AI emotional expressions could give us prudential or even moral reasons to change our behavior. We argue that these conditions do not depend on whether the emotional expression is genuine or not, but rather on the presence of features some of which can be implemented in emotive AI given our current level of technological development. We extract recommendations and warnings for the development of emotive AI. (shrink)

Evaluative judgments imply positive or negative regard. But there are different ways in which something can be positive or negative. How do we tell them apart? According to Evaluative Sentimentalism, different evaluations (e.g., dangerousness vs. offensiveness) are grounded on different emotions (e.g., fear vs. anger). If this is the case, evaluation differentiation requires emotional awareness. Here, we test this hypothesis by looking at alexithymia, a deficit in emotional awareness consisting of problems identifying, describing, and thinking about emotions. The results of (...) Study 1 suggest that high alexithymia is not only related to problems distinguishing emotions, but also to problems distinguishing evaluations. Study 2 replicated this latter effect after controlling for individual differences in attentional impulsiveness and reflective reasoning, and found that reasoning makes an independent contribution to evaluation differentiation. These results suggest that emotional sensibilities play an irreducible role in evaluative judgment while affording a role for reasoning. (shrink)

The metaphysics of gender and race is a growing area of concern in contemporary analytic metaphysics, with many different views about the nature of gender and race being submitted and discussed. But what are these debates about? What questions are these accounts trying to answer? And is there real disagreement between advocates of differ- ent views about race or gender? If so, what are they really disagreeing about? In this paper I want to develop a view about what the debates (...) in the metaphysics of gender and race are about, namely, a version of metaphysical deflationism, according to which these debates are about how we actually use or should use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘race’ (and other related terms), where moral and political considerations play a central role. I will also argue that my version of the view can overcome some recent and powerful objections to metaphysical deflationism of- fered by Elizabeth Barnes (2014, 2017). (shrink)

The syllogism and the predicate calculus cannot account for an ontological argument in Descartes' Fifth Meditation and related texts. Descartes' notion of god relies on the analytic-synthetic distinction, which Descartes had identified before Leibniz and Kant did. I describe how the syllogism and the predicate calculus cannot explain Descartes' ontological argument; then I apply the analytic-synthetic distinction to Descartes’ idea of god.

This paper explores the connections between human rights, human dignity, and power. The idea of human dignity is omnipresent in human rights discourse, but its meaning and point is not always clear. It is standardly used in two ways, to refer to a normative status of persons that makes their treatment in terms of human rights a proper response, and a social condition of persons in which their human rights are fulfilled. This paper pursues three tasks. First, it provides an (...) analysis of the content and an interpretation of the role of the idea of human dignity in current human rights discourse. The interpretation includes a pluralist view of human interests and dignity that avoids a narrow focus on rational agency. Second, this paper characterizes the two aspects of human dignity in terms of capabilities. Certain general human capabilities are among the facts that ground status-dignity, and the presence of certain more specific capabilities constitutes condition-dignity. Finally, this paper explores how the pursuit of human rights and human dignity links to distributions and uses of power. Since capabilities are a form of power, and human rights are in part aimed at respecting and promoting capabilities, human rights involve empowerment. Exploring the connections between human rights, capabilities, and empowerment provides resources to defend controversial human rights such as the right to democratic political participation, and to respond to worries about the feasibility of their fulfillment. This paper also argues that empowerment must be coupled with solidaristic concern in order to respond to unavoidable facts of social dependency and vulnerability. (shrink)

Nuestro lenguaje no solo describe el mundo que nos rodea: muchas expresiones que usamos habitualmente (desde predicados de gusto a expresiones como “interesante” o “divertido”) tienen por función valorar los objetos que constituyen nuestro entorno. Las oraciones que las contienen son sensibles a la evaluación: su valor de verdad depende del estándar evaluativo saliente en contexto y su emisión puede dar lugar a desacuerdos duros. El presente trabajo examina la ex- tensión de esta categoría a oraciones con predicados y verbos (...) normativos (éticos, epistémicos, procedimen- tales y deontológicos). Se presta especial atención a la posibilidad de estas oraciones de generar desacuerdos duros, en el marco de una teoría que comprende a las aserciones como adquisición de compromisos discur- sivos y prácticos. (shrink)

Supervaluationism is a well known theory of vagueness. Subvaluationism is a less well known theory of vagueness. But these theories cannot be taken apart, for they are in a relation of duality that can be made precise. This paper provides an introduction to the subvaluationist theory of vagueness in connection to its dual, supervaluationism. A survey on the supervaluationist theory can be found in the Compass paper of Keefe (2008); our presentation of the theory in this paper will be short (...) to get rapidly into the logical issues. This paper is relatively self-contained. A modest background on propositional modal logic is, though not strictly necessary, advisable. The reader might find useful the Compass papers Kracht (2011) and Negri (2011) (though these papers cover issues of more complexity than what is demanded to follow this paper). (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)