Aquinas’ De malo and the Ostensibly Problematic Status of Natural Evil as Privation

Arguments concerning the nature of natural evil vary in their conclusions depending on the particular approach with which they commence inquiry; one of the most contested conclusions regards evil as privation, sourcing its justification primarily from Aquinas’ metaphysical conception of good as being and evil as non-being. It should be of no surprise, then, that the dismissal of natural evil’s privative nature comes about when the understanding of natural evil favours a phenomenological approach rather than a metaphysical one. Proponents of said dismissal generally centre their claims around the notion of pain and suffering as substantially contentful – as in, non-privative – experiences of evil. On the other hand, theorists espousing the privation account generally argue that characterisations of pain and suffering as necessarily evil do not consider the context of orientation towards individual wellbeing within which pain/suffering experiences naturally function. Furthermore, some of the arguments for the privation account’s dismissal seem to disregard completely the Thomistic sense of the form and hierarchy of the good, which ends up straw-manning the privation account to a point where it can no longer reconcile the awfulness of experienced pain and suffering with these experiences not being necessarily evil. The importance of understanding this Thomistic sense is further emphasised in its capacity to explain why a divine and fully good Creator would involve the world with such evil. Thus, this paper first considers the account of evil given in question one of Aquinas’ De malo, along with contemporary arguments for the nature and purpose of evil as privation; second, these are then used as resources to help make sense of, one, the general nature of pain and suffering, and two, some of their specific expressions as found in disease and depression, and throughout evolutionary history

Problemas y dificultades en la traducción chino-español : traducción del texto 乔治和一本书, de 魏微

Tutorizado por las profesoras Taciana Fisac y Chen RuojunEl objetivo del presente trabajo es mostrar al lector algunos de los problemas a los que se enfrenta un traductor cuando lee una obra, la interpreta y la traduce

Influència de la relació leptina/pes en estimulació ovàrica controlada en reproducció assistida

S'ha observat que tant les dones amb sobrepès com les que tenen molt baix pes tenen dificultats per quedar-se embarassades, i que aquests dos grups presenten nivells diferents de leptina, relacionats amb l'eix reproductiu. Els resultats d'un estudi amb pacients sotmeses a fertilització in vitro o ICSI mostren que nivells elevats de leptina intrafol·licular redueixen la producció d'ovòcits i que un menor índex de massa corporal implica una major quantitat d'ovòcits fecundats, independentment dels nivells de leptina.Se ha observado que tanto las mujeres con sobrepeso como las que tienen muy bajo peso tienen dificultades para quedarse embarazadas, y que estos dos grupos presentan niveles diferentes de leptina, relacionados con el eje reproductivo. Los resultados de un estudio con pacientes sometidas a fertilización in vitro o ICSI muestran que niveles elevados de leptina intrafolicular reducen la producción de ovocitos y que un menor índice de masa corporal implica una mayor cantidad de ovocitos fecundados, independientemente de los niveles de leptina.It has been observed that both overweight women and those with very low weight have difficulty becoming pregnant, and that these two groups have different levels of leptin related to the reproductive axis. The results of a study with patients undergoing IVF or ICSI show that high levels of intrafollicular leptin reduced egg production and a lower body mass index implied a higher number of fertilised oocytes, regardless of the leptin levels

Kuhn the Contextualist?

According to Kuhn’s account of the nature of scientific paradigms, how one experiences the world varies drastically from one context to another depending on the accepted paradigm of the context in question. In other words, one’s pre-existing conceptual structure concerning the world not only acts as an epistemological framework for its possible understanding, but also fundamentally affects the phenomenological observations of the world as something; this latter function of the conceptual structure motivates the view that mature scientific paradigms/theories and the data of scientific observation/experimentation are essentially two sides of the same coin. What is interesting, then, is that even between different historical eras that generally regarded the world in clearly incompatible ways, albeit still informed by paradigms, Kuhn still attributes scientific knowledge to each. To make sense of this, the explanatory resources of epistemological contextualism are used to specify potentially one way in which epistemic standards for knowledge must change between different historical eras for one to justifiably claim scientific knowledge within these different contexts. As we shall see, the argument for Kuhn’s account of paradigm being contextualist in character is apparently best made through the notion of doubt-driven context-shifts as actualising change in the form of P between different contexts in which “S knows that P” is asserted. As such, this paper first explores Kuhn’s account of scientific knowledge and paradigms before considering how the account can be considered contextualist in nature. Moreover, other context-concerned systems, such as Traditional, and Subject-Sensitive Invariantism, are briefly investigated to substantiate claims of what cannot be accurately ascribed to Kuhn’s epistemology

El fideicomiso al servicio de las políticas del Estado Argentino:análisis comparativo regional

A lo largo de este trabajo analizaremos la figura del fideicomiso en su aplicación a los proyectos donde participa el Estado Argentino, sea nacional, provincial o municipal, desempeñando el rol de promotor o directamente como líder del emprendimiento. Se los denomina fideicomisos públicos o fondos fiduciarios y tomando como punto de partida el fideicomiso argentino de la ley 24.441 que pertenece al derecho privado, se buscará identificar en el utilizado por el Estado, los elementos tipificantes de la figura, demostrando que estos fideicomisos deberían ser privados pero con la característica diferencial que deben tener acción directa sobre el bienestar público y común, dada su premisa fundacional. A través del estudio de casos prácticos seleccionados se identificarán en los fideicomisos actuales impulsados por el Estado, con el supuesto objetivo del mayor bienestar e interés público, las desviaciones con respecto al espíritu y marco teórico que define al contrato de fiducia en su aplicación a los fines nobles que un Estado debe perseguir en beneficio de la comunidad involucrada. También se profundizará en el enfoque regional analizando comparativamente la situación Argentina con las experiencias ocurridas en Chile, Colombia y México en el uso del fideicomiso por parte del Estado. Se definieron estos tres países en particular dado que presentan diferentes experiencias y particularidades frente a la aplicación de esta herramienta. Finalmente y en función de las líneas presentadas, se desarrollaran las conclusiones con el fin de aportar una serie de medidas que permitan un mejor uso del fideicomiso, en todos los casos donde el Estado desempeñe el rol de fiduciante.

Comerciants, pirates i conqueridors. Els víkings a l'Anglaterra del segle IX

Treballs Finals de Grau en Història, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2013-2014, Tutor: Daniel Piñol AlabartAquest treball tracta d’explicar el per què de les expansions víkingues i de l'arribada i assentament d'aquests a Anglaterra. Gràcies als descobriments de l'arqueologia dels últims 20 anys noves llums han aparegut al voltant de la magnitud de la migració escandinava a les illes, així com de la importància que van tenir en aquesta les dones, fins ara menyspreades. Per il·lustrar l'assentament víking he mostrat el cas de la ciutat de York, seu d'una important comunitat víkinga i amb prou restes materials per evidenciar l'impacte nòrdic a sòl anglès i la revifada de la vida del món urbà, després de dècades de decadència. He posat l'èmfasi en el paper de la dona, doncs és el camp que ha patit més canvis i controvèrsies, i en l'aplicació dels nous avenços científics, que han aportat una munió de dades que ha permès replantejar algunes idees i hipotetitzar-ne de noves. En referència a això i a la convivència entre víkings i anglosaxons, he parlat de dues foses comunes descobertes el 2008 i 2009, amb les restes de quasi un centenar d'individus que han estat identificats com a escandinaus, però entorn els quals s'ha obert un gran debat sobre si eren pirates, mercenaris o grangers, el que es consideraria un genocidi

Professional Responsibility: A Deontological Case-Study Approach

Kantian Deontological Ethics concerns itself with the will as grounded in universalisable maxims. Such maxims are in turn based on rationally conceived laws that, in a professional setting, find expression in the autonomously made agreements constituting professional protocols and regulations. When applied to a case-study wherein public safety has been possibly jeopardised by company products, we can argue for priority in the agreed-to responsibility towards the good of professional autonomy, expressed as a rational mandate of nondisclosure of confidential product information, over that of the good of public safety. This priority persists regardless of whether the good of truth, such as the disclosure of confidential product information, has its value grounded in itself or the good of safety. Nevertheless, company and individual professional responsibility may prioritise safety over autonomy, but how this prioritisation is made must be sensitive to the autonomously willed choice of the employed professional