Digital literacy as preventive ethics metacognitive education for the post-COVID-19 media context

During the COVID-19 pandemic and the infodemic that accompanied it, digital literacy proved to be a preventive approach with the possibility of offering future guidance to contemplate the negative influences of digital media in the post-pandemic context. However, this emphasis on the potentialities of digital literacy requires, at the same time, a review of its traditional assumptions, in order to optimize its characteristics in the future context. One of the central aspects of this review is related to the inclusion of the interference that cognitive biases have in the use of contemporary digital media, in which misinformation and misinformation proliferate. A clear example of this during the pandemic has been the spread of multiple conspiracy theories. Starting from here, the objective of this article will be to analyze the possible contribution of metacognition, when it is understood as a fundamental component of digital literacy.

Meeting points between critical thinking and metacognition to rethink the teaching of ethics

The traditional vision of critical thinking (CT) founded on a rationalist approach has been questioned since the end of the last century by the ‘second wave’ of CT, which, despite not being a fully defined movement, has included aspects such as imagination, creativity and cooperative work in its understanding and in its application to teaching. At the same time, current perspectives in moral psychology such as the ‘social intuitionist’ model proposed by Jonathan Haidt, represent a challenge to the rationalist model of morality that many of the canonical normative ethics suppose. Since both CT and the moral foundation represent essential factors in the teaching of ethics, it is made explicit that the latter also needs to be revised. That is why the present work analyses a perspective of CT alternative to the traditional one based on the potential contribution of metacognition and the social intuitionist model, in order to open new lines of research to update the moral foundation that is assumed in the teaching of ethics. To delve into this, the relevance and applicability of metacognition in the teaching of ethics will be exemplified with situations related to the current Covid-19 pandemic. © Universidad Politécnica Salesiana del Ecuador.

Environment, media, and moral psychology. On the potential of disciplinary convergence in a post-pandemic animal bioethics

Since the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a striking social phenomenon has been taking place: in various parts of the world, groups of people proceeded to drive away and/or exterminate colonies of bats, assuming that such action would help to prevent possible infections when in fact it only made the situation worse. In order to analyse in depth such social phenomena, it is necessary to resort to diverse disciplines such as environmental ethics, media ethics and moral psychology. As will be argued in this article, one field of knowledge that favours the appropriate disciplinary convergence to address the complexity of problems such as the one mentioned, is a discipline that is generally not much visited in the productions linked to general bioethics and animal ethics, namely animal bioethics. In the conclusions of this article, it will be possible to show that this discipline not only contributes to the analysis of specific problems such as the current persecution of bats, but also that benefits from a critical approach of certain blind spots of the interrelated disciplines. Copyright (c) 2021 E. Joaquín Suárez-Ruíz Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional.