El Quijote y el estoicismo

¿Alcanzó al Quijote el resurgimiento del estoicismo, tan influyente en la cultura de su tiempo? El artículo rastrea la presencia de muchas de sus principales ideas en la novela: la bipartición entre espíritu y cuerpo y, consiguientemente, la división entre individuos espirituales y terrenales; las cualidades del espíritu: inalterabilidad de ánimo (constantia), paciencia, virtud, libertad; las pasiones y afectos terrenales: cólera, esperanza y miedo; la consideración expresa de la divina providencia; la autonomía de la moral; la visión de la adversidad como benéfica. La conclusión es que, al menos en la creación de sus personajes, Cervantes parece utilizar el ideal humano estoico como paradigma de altura moral. To what extent was Don Quixote influenced by the resurgence of Stoicism, which was so influential in the culture of that time? This article traces the presence of many of the principal ideas of Stoicism in the work: the separation between body and spirit and consequently the differentiation between spiritual and earthly individuals; the qualities of the spirit: the inalterability of mood (constantia), patience, virtue, freedom; the earthly passions and emotions: ire, hope and fear; divine providence, autonomy of morals; the idea of adversity as positive. One can conclude that when presenting his characters, Cervantes, at least, uses the Stoic human ideal as a model of high moral ground.

Committed capitalism

This article presents contributions from pragmatic sociology to the debate on the commitment of economic actors to socio-environmental causes. Given the controversy about the achievements of their engagement, we propose the notion of committed capitalism and seek to understand it through the moral ground of its critiques, defenses and the construction of its normativity. We aim to emphasize two dimensions observed in contemporary capitalism: the declared commitment to a cause and the efforts of actors to stabilize a compromise among distinct orders of worth (market, industrial, and civic) and create devices that actualize it in the world. Drawing on a textual corpus of Brazilian newspapers, we examine the interplay of critiques of corporate social responsibility, corporate sustainability, and social finance, as well as their responses. As a result, we present a framework of internal and external critiques of the compromise that allow us to understand the contours of the moral dimension that underpins some crucial aspects of contemporary capitalism.

Refuse to be a fool

Science has been held on high moral ground, and precisely because of that, researchers have to try to satisfy everyone. They are universities, funders, industries, journals, publishers, editors, reviewers, and even the public. Universities and funders often demand prestigious studies in prestigious journals. Meanwhile, journals want submitted manuscripts to be novel and original, despite the fact that it could be the 54,560th papers to write about a topic, and the journal is one in a few hundred journals in the same discipline. Editors and reviewers can be more personal with their intentions, but the infamous Reviewer 2 will always be around the corner. The industries will probably pay you handsomely, but there is a grey zone that can be quite nerving to think about. Oh, and the public. The public. It is hard to know their needs. The scientific contribution needs to be understandable, but cheap. It must be practical, but it should work on the first try.

The Moral Ground to View Poverty Is Injustice

Chapter 12 examines poverty through the lens of injustice. Poverty has traditionally been understood as a failure at the individual level. The poor have thus been viewed as undeserving of support. Examples of using the broad brush of individual blame to paint the poor as undeserving can be found across a wide spectrum. One of the pernicious results of this myth is that it provides a comfortable justification for doing nothing to address poverty. In contrast, this chapter argues that poverty is a condition resulting largely from a failure at the structural level. The appropriate moral grounds to view poverty should be one of injustice, rather than blame.

Maria Stewart: A Black Voice for Abolition

This article argues that Maria Stewart is an underappreciated abolitionist, and a worthy exponent of the Black views of the 1830s. Her work is compared with that of David Walker, Charlotte Forten, and Anna Julia Cooper. A focal point of much of her work is her exhortation to the high moral ground—she remains concerned, throughout her career, about the temptations faced by many during the nineteenth century that might lead them to a non-Christian path. As is the case with Charlotte Forten, who frequently moved for more formal education, Stewart worked ceaselessly to impel Black Americans to a worthy and virtuous life.

Hate or Love Thy Enemy? Humanitarian Patriotism

In the eighteenth century, the principle of a moral universalism in time of war triumphed: war was fought on the moral ground as well as on the battlefield. This chapter argues that the language of humanitarian patriotism encapsulates the tensions within the discourse that aimed to make war more ‘civilized’ by treating the enemy ‘humanely’. The chapter demonstrates the political, moral, and practical ambiguities that were entailed by the act of bringing relief to enemies in wartime. Public discussion revolved around the ‘just’ treatment of alien enemies in captivity. The study of philanthropic campaigns for improving the treatment of prisoners of war and the sending of missionaries into prisons demonstrate the particularity of the prisoner of war, as an enemy and a fellow human being.

Analyzing the legal roots and moral core of digital consent

We will argue that clarifying the “moral core” of consent offers a common metric by which we can evaluate how well different legal frameworks are able to protect the central moral rights and interests at stake. We begin by revisiting how legal frameworks for digital consent developed in order to see where there may be common moral ground and where these different cultures diverge on the issue of protection of personal information. We then turn to ethics to clarify the central interests and rights at stake in morally transformative consent, in order to provide a common basis for evaluating the different legal frameworks. Ultimately, we seek the moral core of digital consent in order to reimagine its role in international conflicts.