Is “Latin American Thought” Philosophy?

Abstract: A durable question in Latin American thought is whether it could amount to a characteristically Latin American philosophy. I argue that if, as is now widely conceded, there is a role for philosophical analysis in thinking about problems that arise in applied subjects, such as bioethics, environmental ethics, and feminism, then why not also in Latin American thought? After all, the focus of Hispanic thinkers has often been upon the issues that arise in their own experiences of the world, and they make up a diverse group of peoples related by very idiosyncratic ethnic and historical connections. I believe that, given some appropriate criteria, the existing corpus of works by Latin American thinkers is a part of a distinctive philosophy.     

Organizational social context and psychopathology of youth in residential care: The intervening role of youth–caregiver relationship quality

Drawing on an ecological approach with multiple informants, this study investigated the mediating role of youth–caregiver relationship quality in associations between different features of residential care settings' organizational social context and youth's psychopathology. Participants were 378 youth aged between 12 and 25 years old, and 54 caregivers aged between 24 and 57 years old, from 29 generalist residential youth care settings in Portugal. Given the hierarchical structure of data, analyses were performed using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that organizational social contexts characterized by higher levels of engagement, stress, and centralization, as perceived by the caregivers, were associated with lower levels of youth's externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive behavior and delinquency), reported by the caregivers, via better youth–caregiver relationship quality, perceived by the youth in care. These findings highlight the relevance of creating an organizational social context in residential care settings that supports caregivers in establishing high-quality relationships with the youth in care, thereby promoting their mental health. This study contributes to the clarification of conflicting findings in previous studies of this field, by offering further empirical investigation of these issues.     

Getting it Right

In addition to noting significant differences of interpretation between me and Kristopher Norris on understanding classic just war thought and judging its importance, this Comment flags errors of fact and faulty logic in the Norris essay.     

JUST WAR THEORY,HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION,AND THE NEED FOR A DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self‐defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth‐century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the “just authority” of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near‐unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions.     

JUST LIES: Finding Augustine's Ethics of Public Lying in His Treatments of Lying and Killing

Augustine famously defends the justice of killing in certain public contexts such as just wars. He also claims that private citizens who intentionally kill are guilty of murder, regardless of their reasons. Just as famously, Augustine seems to prohibit lying categorically. Analyzing these features of his thought and their connections, I argue that Augustine is best understood as endorsing the justice of lying in certain public contexts, even though he does not explicitly do so. Specifically, I show that parallels between his treatments of killing and lying along with his “agent (auctor)–instrument (minister)” distinction, in which God is the true agent or “author” of certain acts and humans are merely God's instruments, together imply that he would regard certain instances of public lying as permissible and even obligatory. I buttress my argument by examining several key but neglected passages and by responding to various objections and rival interpretations. Throughout, I challenge standard interpretations of Augustine's ethics of killing and lying and seek to deepen our overall understanding of these dimensions of his thought. In so doing, I contribute to ongoing discussions of public and private lying and to the task of relating Augustine's thought to contemporary debate and deliberation on war, killing, and lying.     

Destructiveness, atrocities and healing: epistemological and clinical reflections

In this paper, destructiveness is approached as a multi-dimensional phenomenon where the mental health perspective addresses only one of these dimensions. An attempt is made to locate this phenomenon in the context of epistemological and societal considerations. Critical of mono-dimensional explanations based on causal-reductive epistemology, the paper instead proposes the idea of an 'ecology of destructiveness', according to which mental health professionals cannot possibly continue to assume the role of detached observers. The ordinariness and archetypal fascination of destructiveness are discussed as preventing the psychologizing and pathologizing of it. In addition, it is suggested that 'destructiveness may be a tragic facet of the human condition', without this implying any justification of it. Based on my work with a group of Bosnian ex-camp prisoners, some basic principles of how one can work with survivors of atrocities are derived and discussed. A central feature of this work is the attempt to create an appropriate therapeutic context within which a 'therapeutic presence' and 'therapeutic witnessing' can be developed. Finally, the relevance of Jungian insights to this kind of work is reviewed and the emergence of new types of defences of the self is identified.     

Authorization and The Morality of War

Why does it matter that those who fight wars be authorized by the communities on whose behalf they claim to fight? I argue that lacking authorization generates a moral cost, which counts against a war's proportionality, and that having authorization allows the transfer of reasons from the members of the community to those who fight, which makes the war more likely to be proportionate. If democratic states are better able than non-democratic states and sub-state groups to gain their community's authorization, this means that some wars will be proportionate if fought by democracies, disproportionate if not.     

Acute stress disorder among civilians during a war and post-traumatic growth six years later: the impact of personal and social resources

Background and Objectives: Various studies suggest a link between stress response to a traumatic event and post-traumatic growth (PTG), but little is known about their long-term relationship. In this study, the relationship between acute stress disorder (ASD) among civilians during a war on the home front and PTG six years later was examined for the first time. Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the role of personal and social resource loss and gain as moderating factors was investigated. Design and Methods: At Time 1 of the research (the Second Lebanon War in 2006), a structured questionnaire was administered to 370 civilians living within rocket range. At Time 2, 6 years later, 301 participants from Time 1 were again examined. The data analysis refers to the 301 respondents who participated at Time 2. Results: The findings indicate a significant relationship between ASD and PTG. Examination of the interaction revealed that resource gain (but not resource loss) moderates (strengthens) the relationship between the two. Conclusions: These findings are not consistent with the COR view that resource loss has a greater effect on stress responses than resource gain.     

A simulator study of factors influencing drivers’ behavior at traffic lights

Drivers’ reactions to changing traffic lights have an impact on safety at intersections. We examined the influence of transient factors – more specifically time pressure and social context, both conducive to traffic-light violation – on behavior behind the wheel when a traffic light changes. We carried out an experiment on a driving simulator. The participants were 94 car drivers (53 males) with a mean age of 21.7 years. They drove under time pressure vs. no time pressure. At several intersections the participants were alone (no other drivers present), whereas at several other intersections they were behind a line-up of vehicles, the last of which ran the yellow light (other drivers present). As expected, time pressure and social context (presence of other drivers) increased participants’ risky behaviors while approaching, and going through traffic lights, as well as undesirable rapid accelerations when the signal changes to green. The effect of time pressure on yellow-light running was not mediated by approach speed, which showed that participants in a hurry were likely to run lights intentionally. The results are interpreted in view of proposing effective measures for reducing yellow-light running and rapid accelerations at traffic lights.