Alireza Bagheri supports a policy on organ procurement where individuals could choose their own definition of death between two or more socially accepted alternatives. First, we claim that such a policy, without any criterion to distinguish accepted from acceptable definitions, easily leads to the slippery slope that Bagheri tries to avoid. Second, we suggest that a public discussion about the circumstances under which the dead donor rule could be violated is more productive of social trust than constantly moving the line (...) between life and death. (shrink)

The global spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b has evolved into a multispecies panzootic that disrupts conventional boundaries between human, animal and environmental health systems. Using Brazil’s response as an illustrative case, this article argues that prevailing containment strategies—particularly mass culling—remain ethically insufficient and practically misaligned with the ecological complexity of H5N1 transmission. To clarify the normative foundations of an alternative approach, we introduce a theoretical framework grounded in zoonoethics and global ecological bioethics, emphasizing multispecies justice, relational (...) vulnerability, intercultural and community engagement and co-responsibility. We then apply this framework to evaluate the limitations of reactive biosecurity paradigms and to outline multispecies-sensitive One Health governance guidelines. The analysis demonstrates that effective and legitimate panzootic response requires moving beyond biomedical and anthropocentric models toward anticipatory, inclusive and ethically grounded governance capable of addressing structural drivers such as biodiversity loss, land-use change and the erosion of Indigenous territorial protections. We conclude by discussing how the H5N1 panzootic represents a ‘perfect storm’ that demands not only improved preparedness, but a reconceptualization of One Health as an ethical and political project of multispecies cohabitation in an era of planetary instability. (shrink)

La mujer todavía tiene numerosas barreras para poder acceder al Deporte (Pérez-Ugena, 2020). Esto se debe, tal y como indica Monforte y Úbeda-Colomer (2019) a que los estereotipos de género siguen existiendo en nuestra sociedad. El objetivo de estudio fue analizar los estereotipos de género en la Actividad Física y el Deporte en 51 adolescentes, utilizando para ello variables sociodemográficas y el instrumento de CEGAFD (Granda et al., 2018). Los resultados muestran que, en la mayoría de los ejemplos, se toma (...) como referente el sexo masculino, destacando también, diferencias significativas en la variable de Estereotipos de Género en el Deporte. (shrink)

Antonio Caso, “La existencia como economía y como caridad” (1916). Translated with Jose G. Rodriguez Jr. as “Existence as Economy and as Charity,” in 20th Century Mexican Philosophy: Essential Readings, eds. Carlos Alberto Sánchez and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra offers a fresh philosophical account of properties. How is it that two different things (such as two red roses) can share the same property (redness)? According to resemblance nominalism, things have their properties in virtue of resembling other things. This unfashionable view is championed with clarity and rigor.

The paper argues that grounding is neither irreflexive, nor asymmetric, nor transitive. In arguing for that conclusion the paper also arguesthat truthmaking is neither irreflexive, nor asymmetric, nor transitive.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra presents an original study of the place and role of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's philosophy. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things; Leibniz derived it from more basic principles and used it to establish important philosophical theses. Rodriguez-Pereyra aims to establish what Leibniz meant by the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, what his arguments for and from it were, and to assess those arguments and Leibniz's claims about the (...) Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. He argues that Leibniz had a very strong version of the principle, according to which no possibilia (whether or not they belong to the same possible world) are intrinsically perfectly similar, where this excludes things that differ in magnitude alone. The book discusses Leibniz's arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles in the Meditation on the Principle of the Individual, the Discourse on Metaphysics, Notationes Generales, Primary Truths, the letter to Casati of 1689, the correspondence with Clarke, as well as the use of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's arguments against the Cartesian conception of the material world, atoms, absolute space and time, the Lockean conception of the mind as a tabula rasa, and freedom of indifference. Rodriguez-Pereyra argues that the Identity of Indiscernibles was a central but inessential principle of Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)

This bulletin contains a summary of the main topics of discussion in truthmaker theory, namely: the definition of truthmakers, problems with Truthmaker Necessitarianism and Truthmaker Maximalism, the ontological burden of truthmakers and the recalcitrant topic of truthmakers for negative truths.

In this paper I undermine the Entailment Principle according to which if an entity is a truthmaker for a certain proposition and this proposition entails another, then the entity in question is a truthmaker for the latter proposition. I argue that the two most promising versions of the principle entail the popular but false Conjunction Thesis, namely that a truthmaker for a conjunction is a truthmaker for its conjuncts. One promising version of the principle understands entailment as strict implication but (...) restricts the field of application of the principle to purely contingent truths (i.e. those that contain no necessary proposition at any level of analysis). But a conjunction of purely contingent truths strictly implies its conjuncts. So this version of the principle is committed to the Conjunction Thesis. The same is true of the version of the principle where entailment is understood in the sense of systems T, R, and E of relevant logic, since in these systems conjunctions entail their conjuncts. I argue that the Conjunction Thesis is false because a truthmaker is that in virtue of what a certain proposition is true and it is false that, for example, what the proposition that Peter is a man is true in virtue of is the conjunctive fact that Peter is man and Saturn is a planet (or the facts that Peter is a man and that Saturn is a planet taken together). I also argue against other versions of the principle. (shrink)

1. The Bundle Theory I shall discuss is a theory about the nature of substances or concrete particulars, like apples, chairs, atoms, stars and people. The point of the Bundle Theory is to avoid undesirable entities like substrata that allegedly constitute particulars. The version of the Bundle Theory I shall discuss takes particulars to be entirely constituted by the universals they instantiate.' Thus particulars are said to be just bundles of universals. Together with the claim that it is necessary that (...) particulars have constituents, the fundamental claim of the Bundle Theory is: (BT) Necessarily, for every particular x and every entity y, y constitutes x if and only ify is a universal and x instantiates y. 2 The standard and supposedly devastating objection to the Bundle Theory is that it entails or is committed to a false version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (Armstrong 1978: 91, Loux 1998: 107), namely: (Pll) Necessarily, for all particulars x and y and every universal z, if z is instantiated by x if and only if z is instantiated byy, then x is numerically identical with y. The most famous counterexample to the Identity of Indiscernibles is that put forward by Max Black, consisting of a world where there are only two iron spheres two miles apart from each other, having the same diameter, temperature, colour, shape, size, etc (Black 1952: 156). Let us from now on think of the properties of the spheres in this world as universals. The possibility of this world, which I shall hereafter refer to as 'Black's world', makes (Pll) false.' And according to common philosophical opinion this means that the Bundle Theory is false.. (shrink)

JANET DELGADO RODRIGUEZ | : The concept of vulnerability is central to current developments in bioethics, not only because of its analytic nature, but also due to its capacity for criticism. However, this concept has not been sufficiently developed, neither in the area of moral philosophy nor in bioethics. For this reason, it is necessary to define and analyze the conceptual framework in which the notion of vulnerability has been developed within the scope of bioethics. Thus, the purpose of this (...) paper is to indicate how the concept of vulnerability in the field of bioethics has been developed and what the main problems that derive from this approach are. Secondly, the paper analyzes some of the main philosophical approaches that I consider should be articulated in the expansion of a critical bioethics approach focused on the notion of vulnerability. To address this issue, I analyze the reflections that we find in the work of Martha Fineman, emphasizing the main relevant aspects for bioethics. Finally, I highlight the main implications of a theory of vulnerability for bioethics. | : Le concept de vulnérabilité est au coeur des développements actuels de la bioéthique, non seulement en raison de sa nature analytique, mais aussi en raison de son potentiel critique. Cependant, ce concept n’a pas été suffisamment développé, que ce soit dans le domaine de la philosophie morale ou de la bioéthique. Pour cette raison, il est nécessaire de définir et d’analyser le cadre conceptuel dans lequel la notion de vulnérabilité a été développée en bioéthique. Ainsi, le but de cet article est d’indiquer comment le concept de vulnérabilité a été développé dans le domaine de la bioéthique et quels sont les principaux problèmes découlant de cette approche. Deuxièmement, l’article analyse certaines des principales approches philosophiques qui devraient selon moi être articulées à une approche bioéthique critique centrée sur la notion de vulnérabilité. Pour traiter ce problème, j’analyse la réflexion de Martha Fineman, en soulignant les principaux aspects pertinents pour la bioéthique. Enfin, je souligne les principales implications d’une théorie de la vulnérabilité pour la bioéthique. (shrink)

In this article I address the Problem of Universals by answering questions about what facts a solution to the Problem of Universals should explain and how the explanation should go. I argue that a solution to the Problem of Universals explains the facts the Problem of Universals is about by giving the truthmakers (as opposed to the conceptual content and the ontological commitments) of the sentences stating those facts. I argue that the sentences stating the relevant facts are those like (...) 'a has the property F', that is, sentences stating that a particular has a certain property. Finally I show how answering these questions in this way transforms the Problem of Universals, traditionally conceived as the One over Many, that is, the problem of explaining how different particulars can have the same properties, into the Many over One, that is, the problem of explaining how the same particular can have different properties. The Problem of Universals is the problem of the Many over One. (shrink)

Universals have traditionally thought to obey the identity of indiscernibles, that is, it has traditionally been thought that there can be no perfectly similar universals. But at least in the conception of universals as immanent, there is nothing that rules out there being indiscernible universals. In this paper, I shall argue that there is useful work indiscernible universals can do, and so there might be reason to postulate indiscernible universals. In particular, I shall argue that postulating indiscernible universals can allow (...) a theory of universals to identify particulars with bundles of universals, and that postulating indiscernible universals can allow a theory of universals to develop an account of the resemblance of quantitative universals that avoids the objections that Armstrong’s account faces. Finally, I shall respond to some objections and I shall undermine the criterion of distinction between particulars and universals that says that the distinction between particulars and universals lies in that while there can be indiscernible particulars, there cannot be indiscernible universals. (shrink)

The subtraction argument, originally put forward by Thomas Baldwin (1996), is intended to establish Metaphysical Nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects. Some modified versions of the argument have been proposed in order to avoid some difficulties faced by the original argument. In this paper I shall concentrate on two of those versions, the so-called subtraction argument* (presented and defended in Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997, 2000, 2002), and Efird and Stoneham’s recent version of the argument (Efird and Stoneham (...) 2005). I shall defend the subtraction argument* from Alexander Paseau’s (2006) objection that because a crucial premise of the subtraction argument* may have no plausibility independent from Metaphysical Nihilism, the subtraction argument* is not suasive. Although Paseau focuses on the subtraction argument*, I shall point out that Efird and Stoneham could reply to Paseau’s objection in the same way. Thus there are (at least) two suasive versions of the subtraction argument that establish Metaphysical Nihilism. But are those two arguments equally good? I shall argue that the subtraction argument* is preferable to Efird and Stoneham’s argument. (shrink)

Peter Milne has tried to refure Truthmaker Maximalism. the thesis that every truth has a truthmaker, by producing a simple and direct counterexample to it, the sentence M: This sentence has no truthmaker. I argue that, contrary to what Milne argues, on Truthmaker Maximalism M is equivalent to the Liar, which gives the truthmaker maximalist a way to defend his position from Milne's counterexample: to argue that M expresses no proposition.

I believe in metaphysical nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects, because I believe in a version of the subtraction argument, the subtraction argument*, that proves it. But both Jonathan Lowe (2002) and Alexander Paseau (2002) express doubts about the subtraction argument*. Paseau thinks the argument is invalid, and Lowe argues that invoking concrete* objects is unnecessary. Furthermore Lowe attempts to rebut my objections (Rodriguez-Pereyra 2000) to his anti-nihilist argument (Lowe 1998). In this paper I defend (...) the subtraction argument* from Paseau's and Lowe's criticisms as well as show that the premises of Lowe's anti-nihilist argument are still lacking support. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the modal logic with both $$\Box $$ and $$\Diamond $$ arising from Kripke models with a crisp accessibility and whose propositions are valued over the standard Gödel algebra $$[0,1]_G$$. We provide an axiomatic system extending the one from Caicedo and Rodriguez (J Logic Comput 25(1):37–55, 2015) for models with a valued accessibility with Dunn axiom from positive modal logics, and show it is strongly complete with respect to the intended semantics. The axiomatizations of the most (...) usual frame restrictions are given too. We also prove that in the studied logic it is not possible to get $$\Diamond $$ as an abbreviation of $$\Box $$, nor vice-versa, showing that indeed the axiomatic system we present does not coincide with any of the mono-modal fragments previously axiomatized in the literature. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereya provides a new English translation of G. W. Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics, complete with a critical introduction and a comprehensive philosophical commentary. In this fundamental work, Leibniz sets out a metaphysics for Christianity and provides answers to the central metaphysical questions.

This paper is a response to replies by Dan López de Sa and Mark Jago to my ‘Truthmaking, Entailment, and the Conjuction Thesis’. In that paper, my main aim was to argue against the Entailment Principle by arguing against the Conjunction Thesis, which is entailed by the Entailment Principle. In the course of so doing, although not essential for my project in that paper, I defended the Disjunction Thesis. López de Sa has objected both to my defence of the Disjunction (...) Thesis and my case against the Conjunction Thesis. I shall show that his objections are unfounded and based on serious misunderstandings of my position, what the relevant debate is, and some fundamental notions of Truthmaker Theory. Jago argues that accepting the Disjunction Thesis and rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is hard to maintain. But I show that Jago has not shown that accepting the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is impossible or even hard to maintain. Jago believes that, to accept the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis, one needs to reject his axiom (T3), which says that all the truthmakers for <P&P> are truthmakers for <P>. I argue that there are reasons to reject such a principle, and the version of it that says that what makes <P&P> true makes <P> true. (shrink)

Leibniz was a philosopher of principles: the principles of Contradiction, of Sufficient Reason, of Identity of Indiscernibles, of Plenitude, of the Best, and of Continuity are among the most famous Leibnizian principles. In this article I shall focus on the first three principles; I shall discuss various formulations of the principles (sect. 1), what it means for these theses to have the status of principles or axioms in Leibniz’s philosophy (sect. 2), the fundamental character of the Principles of Contradiction and (...) Sufficient Reason (sect. 3), some attempts to demonstrate the Principles of Contradiction and Sufficient Reason (sect. 4), and one attempt to demonstrate the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (sect. 5). The main results of the chapter are summarized in a short conclusion (sect. 6). (shrink)

El Elogio de la filosofía (1953) es uno de los lugares más indicados donde Merleau-Ponty, a medio camino de su producción teórica, dialoga con la filosofía de su tiempo, a la vez que aclara los presupuestos e interrogantes fundamentales a los que su pensamiento trata de dar respuesta. El artículo se ocupa, principalmente, de la lectura crítica y singular prolongación merlopontiana de la obra de Bergson, buscando encontrar algunas claves de la raíz especulativa común a ambos pensadores y a otros (...) contemporáneos, a la vez que plantea aportar alguna luz sobre el novedoso sentido merlopontiano de la actividad filosófica, como filosofía de la ambigüedad en la que la interrogación es su eje motriz. (shrink)

Background: Respecting dignity is having a profound effect on the clinical relationship and the care framework for terminally ill patients in palliative care units, hospices and their own homes, with particular consequences for the emergency department. However, dignity is a vague and multifaceted concept that is difficult to measure. Objective: The aim of this study is to define the attributes of dignity in end-of-life care in the emergency department, based on the opinions of physicians and nurses. Research design: A hermeneutic (...) phenomenological approach utilising Gadamer's philosophical underpinnings guided the study. Participants and research context: This research was conducted in Spain in 2013–2014. Participants included 10 physicians and 16 nurses with experience working in the emergency department. Two focus groups and 12 in-depth interviews were carried out. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Research Centre Ethical Committee (Andalusian Health Service, Spain). Findings: The results point to the person's inherent value, socio-environmental conditions and conscious actions/attitudes as attributes of dignity when caring for a dying patient in the emergency department. Discussion: Dying with dignity is a basic objective in end-of-life care and is an ambiguous but relevant concept for physicians and nurses. In line with our theoretical framework, our results highlight care environment, professional actions and socio-family context as attributes of dignity. Conclusion: Quality care in the emergency department includes paying attention to the dignity of people in the process of death. The dignity in the care of a dying person in the emergency department is defined by acknowledging the inherent value in each person, socio-environmental conditions and social and individual acceptance of death. Addressing these questions has significant repercussions for health professionals, especially nurses. (shrink)

Preserving dignity during the dying process requires reviewing the roles of those involved in the treatment, care methods and decision-making. This article examines the participation and responsibility assigned to nurses regarding decision-making in the final stages of life, as laid out in the Rights to and Guarantee of Dignity for the Individual During the Process of Death Act. This text has been analysed on the levels of socio-cultural practice and discourse practice, using the critical discourse analysis methodology. The results show (...) that, although the law is another result of the social trend of patient empowerment, the responsibility of the nurses is not recognised, and they are left out of the decision-making process in the final stages of life. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to provide a solution to Nelson Goodman’s Imperfect Community difficulty as it arises for Resemblance Nominalism, the view that properties are classes of resembling particulars. The Imperfect Community difficulty consists in that every two members of a class resembling each other is not sufficient for it to be a class such that there is some property common to all their members, even if ‘x resembles y’ is understood as ‘x and y share some property’. (...) In the paper I explain and criticise several solutions to the difficulty. Then I develop my own solution, which is not subject to the objections I make to the other solutions, and which accords completely with the basic tenets of Resemblance Nominalism. (shrink)

As a result of recent corporate scandals, several rules have focused on the role played by Boards of Directors on the planning and monitoring of corporate codes of ethics. In theory, outside directors are in a better position than insiders to protect and further the interests of all stakeholders because of their experience and their sense of moral and legal obligations. Female directors also tend to be more sensitive to ethics according to several past studies which explain this affirmation by (...) early gender socialization, the fact that women are thought to place a greater emphasis on harmonious relations and the fact that men and women use different ethical frameworks in their judgments. The goal of this paper is to determine the influence of these characteristics of the Board in terms of promoting and hindering the creation of a code of ethics. Our findings show that a greater number of female directors does not necessarily lead to more ethical companies. Moreover, within Europe as a continent, board ownership leads to an entrenchment of upper-level management, generating a divergence between the ethical interests of owners and managers. In light of this situation, the presence of independent directors is necessary to reduce such conflicts. (shrink)

According to one of Leibniz's theories of contingency a proposition is contingent if and only if it cannot be proved in a finite number of steps. It has been argued that this faces the Problem of Lucky Proof , namely that we could begin by analysing the concept ‘Peter’ by saying that ‘Peter is a denier of Christ and …’, thereby having proved the proposition ‘Peter denies Christ’ in a finite number of steps. It also faces a more general but (...) related problem that we dub the Problem of Guaranteed Proof . We argue that Leibniz has an answer to these problems since for him one has not proved that ‘Peter denies Christ’ unless one has also proved that ‘Peter’ is a consistent concept, an impossible task since it requires the full decomposition of the infinite concept ‘Peter’. We defend this view from objections found in the literature and maintain that for Leibniz all truths about created individual beings are contingent. (shrink)

By nihilism I shall understand the thesis that it is metaphysically possible that there are no concrete objects. I think there is a version of an argu- ment, the subtraction argument, which proves nihilism nicely (see Baldwin 1996 and Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997). But E. J. Lowe, who is no nihilist, has a very interesting argument purporting to show that concrete objects exist necessarily (Lowe 1996, 1998). In this paper I shall defend nihilism from Lowe’s argument.

In order to present the philosopher Alberto Wagner de Reyna, we must first understand his life, then his work, and finally the force of his ideas; especially those which establish him within the history of philosophical ideas. This paper presents a synthesis of the conversation that the author..

Bertrand Russell argued that any attempt to get rid of universals in favor of resemblances fails. He argued that no resemblance theory could avoid postulating a universal of resemblance without falling prey to a vicious infinite regress. He added that admitting such a universal of resemblance made it pointless to avoid other universals. In this paper I defend resemblance nominalism from both of Russell's points by arguing that (a) resemblance nominalism can avoid the postulation of a universal of resemblance without (...) falling into a vicious infinite regress, and (b) even if resemblance nominalism had to admit a universal of resemblance, this would not make it pointless to avoid postulating other universals. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen has given an answer to the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’. His answer is: Because there being nothing is as improbable as anything can be: it has probability 0. Here I shall examine his argument for this answer and I shall argue that it does not work because no good reasons have been given for two of the argument’s premises and that the conclusion of the argument does not constitute an answer to the question (...) van Inwagen wanted to answer. (shrink)