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AUTHOR

Geoffrey Skoll

Ethical Assumptions: A Criticism against Modern Pragmatism

The advent of neoliberalism in the early 1970s marked a new age for ethical practices. Although pragmatism as an approach to ethics pre-dated neoliberalism, the neoliberal approach to political economy ushered in a new kind of pragmatism, owing little to Jeremy Bentham, even less to the American philosophical pragmatists Charles S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Today’s pragmatism has permeated the penal systems of the central countries of the world capitalist system. A new ethics emerged, a neopragmatism. Acts came to be judged by their effects and not by the motives that led to the actions. This altered the doctrine of Abrahamic religions, and led to the disappearance of forgivene…

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Estados Unidos y el principio de extraordinariedad

En los últimos años, los cientistas sociales se han visto atraídos por el unilateralismo estadounidense en política internacional. Sus observaciones coinciden en resaltar el sentido de especialidad promovido por los estadounidenses para verse asimismo frente a otros. En este sentido, el presente trabajo examina las causas culturas y sociales de cómo se ha formado el principio del destino revelado, que lleva a los americanos a sentirse especiales. La discusión apunta a defender la tesis de que este pueblo ha desarrollado una visión realmente trágica del mundo por medio del cual la necesidad de alcanzar la virtud converge en el temor del hundimiento.

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Technology and Terror

The present chapter discusses to what extent rationality plays a leading role not only in forming a culture of fear in western societies, but paves the ways for undemocratic attitudes and reactions. Our founding parents envisaged a world where progress, rationality, and technology played a vital role in building a better place to live. They never imagined the effects of 9/11 nor the financial market and stock crisis in 2008. The rise of uncertainty as a main cultural value of contemporary society raised the question of how much technology facilitated the evolution towards a more pacific, fairer, and safer world. We have witnessed how 9/11 strengthened a process of securitization where high …

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