Formación humanística en estudiantes de Educación Básica Regular

La presente investigación parte de la noción de “crisis de las humanidades” propuesta por Martha Nussbaum (2010), quien denuncia la decadencia de la educación a nivel mundial. A partir de ahí, este artículo indaga por el nivel de formación humanística de estudiantes de secundaria de dos colegios peruanos. El diseño utilizado en el estudio fue cuantitativo descriptivo transversal. La muestra se compuso de 350 estudiantes del sétimo ciclo de Educación Básica Regular de dos centros educativos ubicados en el mismo distrito. Los resultados evidencian que el nivel de formación humanística alcanzado por los estudiantes es, predominantemente, deficiente. Se concluye que urgen estudios que se centren en investigar sobre estrategias didácticas que permitan el desarrollo de la formación humanística en las aulas escolares.

An Analytical Study of Women Objectification in “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

The objectification of women is a communal problem in every developed and underdeveloped society of the world. Women make a major population of the world and serve society in multidimensional modes, but still, they are considered feeble to men. The subject of women objectification has remained the focus of various researchers globally. This research focused on three short stories drawn from “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” of Daniyal Mueenuddin to bring forward disparities and inequalities prevailing in the patriarchal society of Pakistan. Additionally, it investigated the impact of these inequalities and injustices on the downtrodden women of Pakistan. The objectification of women is such discrimination that women are subjected to undergo in a patriarchal social setup. This study analyzes the objectification of women through the lenses of female characters selected from three short stories. This study uses the theoretical frameworks of Martha Nussbaum and Rae Langton’s to draw outcomes for this study. Study findings exhibit that female characters undergo objectification and are treated as things by males in the male-dominated strata of Pakistan. Keywords: Women objectification, gender, patriarchy, oppression, feminism

The Ethics and Characterisation of God, and the Rejection of Saul

In dialogue with the thought of Martha Nussbaum, divine emotions point to God’s cherished projects and are relevant for the ethical evaluation of divine violence. There is complexity in analysing ancient concepts broadly labelled ‘emotions’ that hold emotive, cognitive, and physical dimensions, including regret and favour. Divine regret suggests that the divine violence against Saul is not a repayment of Saul’s guilt but a repayment of God’s own prior action in making Saul king. Divine regret is an emotion/cognition that is not based on an attempt to determine good and evil but on divine attachments and values, the need to remove Saul, and God’s favour for his neighbour. God’s characterisation is also described through the phrase ‘according to [God’s] own heart,’ and divine presence indicated the divine spirits upon Saul and David.

Divine Violence in the Book of Samuel

Much of the drama, theological paradox, and interpretive interest in the book of Samuel derives from instances of God’s violence in the story. The beginnings of Israel’s monarchy are interwoven with God’s violent rejection of the houses of Eli and of Saul, deaths connected to the Ark of the Covenant, and the outworking of divine retribution after David’s violent appropriation of Bathsheba as his wife. Divine Violence in the Book of Samuel explores these narratives of divine violence from ethical, literary, and political perspectives, in dialogue with the thought of Immanuel Kant, Martha Nussbaum, and Walter Benjamin. The book addresses such questions as: Is the God of Samuel a capricious God with a troubling dark side? Is punishment for sin the only justifiable violence in these narratives? Why does God continue to punish those already declared forgiven? What is the role of God’s emotions in acts of divine violence? In what political contexts might narratives of divine violence against God’s own kings and God’s own people have arisen? The result is a fresh commentary on the dynamics of transgression, punishment, and their upheavals in the book of Samuel. The book offers a sensitive portrayal of God’s literary characterisation, with a focus on divine emotion and its effects. By identifying possible political contexts in which the narratives arose, God’s violence is further illumined through its relation to human violence, northern and southern monarchic ideology, and Judah’s experience of the Babylonian exile.

Breaking the Silence about the Animals We Eat

Some 77 billion terrestrial animals are reared for human consumption globally every year. The moral implications of killing animals for food and the material conditions of these animals in intensive animal agriculture have seldom been discussed in children’s literature. The purpose of this article is to examine how these socially and culturally maintained silences are broken in two Nordic children’s picturebooks, Swedish Älskade lilla gris (Dear Little Pig, 1982) by Ulf Nilsson and Eva Eriksson and Finnish Kinkkulin jouluyllätys (Little Ham’s Christmas Surprise, 2010) by Teija Rekola and Timo Kästämä. The books’ pig protagonists are determined not to die, embodying the dualistic status inherent in the animality of farmed animals; they are subjects and objects, living beings and food-to-become. Further, this article explores the representation of the inherent value of so-called farmed animals and how it can be narrated-to-exist by concepts gleaned from Western animal rights philosophy, especially the capabilities approach by Martha Nussbaum. In the two books, inherent value is expressed in significantly different modes. Älskade lilla gris discusses multispecies families, autonomous animality, and emancipation, whereas Kinkkulin jouluyllätys uses a more traditional mode involving an anthropomorphic animal story, idyllic setting, and humanized subjectivity. Analysis focuses on the representation of nonhuman individuality, agency, sentience, animality, and interaction with humans. Both books present active and sentient individuals with varying degrees of animality. One celebrates its protagonist’s pighood but also contrasts it with the confined conditions of an animal industrial complex. The other employs a human-like pig protagonist on the run from his slaughterer and whose pighood is limited to his appearance and intended use.

Economia solidária sob a ótica das capacidades humanas de Martha Nussbaum

O principal foco deste artigo é apresentar a economia solidária, sob o prisma das capacidades humanas, com esteio no pensamento de Amartya Sen e Martha Nussbaum. A economia solidária circula em torno da ideia de solidariedade, sustentabilidade e inclusão no sistema de produção e distribuição de bens e serviços. Nesse contexto, revisita-se a obra de Martha Nussbaum, “Fronteiras da justiça” com o escopo de identificar elementos para a construção de uma ordem social justa. A metodologia envolve pesquisa interdisciplinar, com orientação epistemológica na teoria crítica e congrega teoria e práxis na articulação do constitucionalismo dirigente e da economia, com as técnicas de análise documental, estatística e de revisão bibliográfica, diante do estudo da viabilidade de implementar a economia solidária, por meio da formação de capital humano no âmbito local. Tem-se como resultados esperados indicar ferramentas que propiciem a observância das oportunidades e do desenvolvimento das capacidades humanas para o estabelecimento de um patamar civilizatório que concilie crescimento econômico com desenvolvimento humano.

On the Town: la empatía como elemento de calidad democrática en el pensamiento político de Marshall Berman

El propósito de este trabajo es estudiar el papel que juega la empatía en la teoría política de Marshall Berman, en concreto en su libro On the town. Para ello, este artículo comienza con un análisis sobre el necesario papel de las emociones en la teoría política democrática. A continuación, recorre algunas de las diferentes concepciones de empatía, entre las que destaca la de Martha Nussbaum. Y, por último, examina la relación entre espacio público, identidad y empatía en On the town para mostrar la importante contribución de este trabajo de Berman para pensar los desafíos de la democracia en la actualidad.

Sustainable Wellbeing Operationalization and Measurement Based on the Capabilities Approach: The Case of Latin America

Starting from the capabilities approach, this work develops the concept of sustainable wellbeing, which highlights the importance of incorporating temporal sustainability into the analysis of wellbeing, with intergenerational justice. For its measurement, 12 dimensions are identified and defined, based on the philosophical approach of central capabilities of Martha Nussbaum. The measurement is applied to 18 Latin American countries, with 116 indicators, using a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). The results show the viability of operationalizing the capabilities approach and its potential to support the formulation of associated policies.

The Passionate Beliefs. A Defense of the Cognitive-Evaluative Theory of Emotions

The philosophy of emotions has long been dominated by the view called «cognitivism». According to it, emotions are characterized (and definable) not by mere physical impulses but by a cognitive evaluation of their object. However, despite their success, cognitive theories have to deal with various objections and are divided on how to answer to them. In this essay I want to defend the form of cognitivism claimed by Martha Nussbaum from the most common criticisms. After a brief summary of her account, I confront some of the objections that have been raised against it. In Section 2 I deal with the classic problem of emotions in infants and animals, which lack linguistic abilities. Later, I confront the potential problem represented by cases in which one’s emotion and reasoned judgment seem to differ: in paragraph 3 I consider irrational phobias and fears, to show how they can be accounted for in terms of judgments and thoughts, and not only of perceptions; in paragraph 4 I deal with the objection that «judgementalist» theories (that is, those that describe emotions in terms of judgments and beliefs) violate the «principle of charity», for they ascribe an excessive irrationality to people. I argue that experimental evidence suggest that it is not implausible to assume that people have contradictory beliefs under conditions of uncertainty, and that perceptual theories of emotion (which compare emotional conflicts to optical illusions) fail to account for some fundamental aspects of these phenomena. Finally, in paragraph 5, I deal with the objection according to which a cognitive-evaluative theory cannot explain the sense of passivity that we commonly experience in emotions.