Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.

Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.

The authors present climate change and antibiotic resistance as emergent biosocial phenomena—ongoing products of massively multiple interactions among human lifestyles and broader life processes. They argue that response to climate change and antibiotic resistance is often framed by two varieties of biosocial imagination. Anthropocentric imaginations privilege the question of human distinctiveness. Anthropomorphic imaginations privilege the question of whether biosocial processes can be modeled in terms of centers of moral and causal responsibility. Together, these frame the matter of response in terms (...) of deliberate human action. The authors argue that, considered as emergent biosocial phenomena, climate change and antibiotic resistance “diffract” deliberate human action and thus limit the value of this frame by rendering the human/nonhuman and intended/nonintended distinctions that are crucial to its practical operation locally irrelevant. Alternative biosocial imaginations currently developing around climate change and antibiotic resistance that allow for “diffraction” and therefore frame response differently are considered. (shrink)

A growing number of decision theorists have, in recent years, defended the view that rationality is permissive under risk: Different rational agents may be more or less risk-averse or risk-inclined. This can result in them making different choices under risk even if they value outcomes in exactly the same way. One pressing question that arises once we grant such permissiveness is what attitude to risk we should implement when choosing on behalf of other people. Are we permitted to implement any (...) of the rationally permissible risk attitudes, is there some specific risk attitude that is required when choosing for others, or are we required to defer to the risk attitudes of the people on whose behalf we are choosing? This article elaborates on this question, explains its wider practical and theoretical significance, provides an overview of existing answers, and explores how to go about providing a more systematic account of how to choose on behalf of others in risky contexts. (shrink)

Ontic structural realists hold that structure is all there is, or at least all there is fundamentally. This thesis has proved to be puzzling: What exactly does it say about the relationship between objects and structures? In this article, I look at different ways of articulating ontic structural realism in terms of the relation between structures and objects. I show that objects cannot be reduced to structure, and argue that ontological dependence cannot be used to establish strong forms of structural (...) realism. At the end, I show how a weaker, but controversial, form of structural realism can be articulated on the basis of ontological dependence. (shrink)

Camill Leberer (geb. 1953) gehört zu den profiliertesten deutschen Bildhauern seiner Generation. Das vorliegende Buch untersucht seine durch die Verwendung von Stahl und Glas ausgezeichneten Plastiken erstmals unter dem Aspekt der Immaterialität. Dazu werden Bezüge zur amerikanischen Light and Space Bewegung, zu amerikanischen wie deutschen Stahlkünstlern und zur Gruppe Zero erarbeitet. Unter anderem durch diese wird das ästhetische Prinzip Immaterialität im Werk Leberers anhand der Informationsästhetik Max Benses kunsthistorisch eingeordnet.

This article contributes to research on the regulation of technological risks in the form of a case study of the Baltic Sea ferry traffic. The analysis suggests that the social systemic features of an industry heavily influence the relationship between technological failures and risk regulation. The study augments recent work on how regulations affect the handling of technological risks and how failures influence regulatory arrangements. These issues have already been studied in the context of aviation, auto, chemical, nuclear power, and (...) railway industries, but not in shipping. As an extension to previous literature, the authors also explore how different regulatory organizations in this industry act in relation to risks and how they influence each other in risk regulation activities. The study highlights the indirect relationships between technological failures and risk regulation arrangements. It also underlines the influence of the involved actors on the regulatory responses to technological failures. (shrink)

This article argues that Lara Buchak’s risk-weighted expected utility (REU) theory fails to offer a true alternative to expected utility theory. Under commonly held assumptions about dynamic choice and the framing of decision problems, rational agents are guided by their attitudes to temporally extended courses of action. If so, REU theory makes approximately the same recommendations as expected utility theory. Being more permissive about dynamic choice or framing, however, undermines the theory’s claim to capturing a steady choice disposition in the (...) face of risk. I argue that this poses a challenge to alternatives to expected utility theory more generally. (shrink)

This study describes the ways in which professionals in two contexts of health care: general practice and homeopathic consultations, respond to patients' affective expressions of a trouble or a problem. The focus is on the turns of professionals that display understanding, compassion or agreement with the patient's account. Different types of affiliative turns are described and their consequences for the following interaction are scrutinized in relation to the institutional task of solving the patients' health-related problems. It is shown that in (...) both contexts, affiliation is oriented to as working towards closing the sequence of troubles-telling and serves to shift back to problem-solving activity, whilst in homeopathy, it may also serve as a means to problem-solving and thus help to complete the institutional task at hand. Some implications of these observations for professional—client interaction will be described. To conclude, the role of emotion in institutional interaction will also be discussed. (shrink)

This important new collection considers Jurgen Habermas's discourse theory from a variety of feminist vantage points. Feminist scholars have been drawn to Habermas's work because it reflects a tradition of emancipatory political thinking rooted in the Enlightenment and engages with the normative aims of emancipatory social movements. The essays in Feminists Read Habermas analyze various aspects of Habermas's work, ranging from his moral theory to political issues of identity and participation. The contributors share a conviction about the potential significance of (...) Habermas's work for feminist reflections on power, norms and subjectivity. (shrink)

Freedom and the subject were guiding themes for Michel Foucault throughout his philosophical career. In this clear and comprehensive analysis of his thought, Johanna Oksala identifies the different interpretations of freedom in his philosophy and examines three major divisions of it: the archaeological, the genealogical, and the ethical. She shows convincingly that in order to appreciate Foucault's project fully we must understand his complex relationship to phenomenology, and she discusses Foucault's treatment of the body in relation to recent feminist (...) work on this topic. Her sophisticated but lucid book illuminates the possibilities that Foucault's philosophy opens up for us in thinking about freedom. (shrink)

Some scientists are happy to follow in the footsteps of others; some like to explore novel approaches. It is tempting to think that herein lies an epistemic division of labor conducive to overall scientific progress: the latter point the way to fruitful areas of research, and the former more fully explore those areas. Weisberg and Muldoon’s model, however, suggests that it would be best if all scientists explored novel approaches. I argue that this is due to implausible modeling choices, and (...) I present an alternative ‘epistemic landscape’ model that demonstrates the alleged benefits from division of labor, with one restriction. (shrink)

How is feminist metaphysics possible? -- In defense of experience -- Foucault and experience -- The problem of language -- A phenomenology of birth -- A phenomenology of gender -- The neoliberal subject of feminism -- Feminism and neoliberal governmentality -- Feminist politics of inheritance.

The definition of ‘patient’ is commonly taken for granted and considered as obvious, but the term is rather underconceptualised in the literature. In this paper, it will be argued that the criterion of suffering can be considered a sufficient criterion for a parent to be considered a secondary patient when their seriously ill child is receiving medical care (i.e. not necessarily the parents themselves) – these parents are sufferers in virtue of the suffering of others. The nature of parental and (...) child health and well-being is clearly relational and bidirectional, thus also a bidirectional and relational integration of parental and paediatric patient care is necessary. A genuine expansion of the concept ‘patient’ to parents, both practically and theoretically, can help to bring awareness to the closely intertwining, interacting and interdependent vulnerabilities of both parties, the potential conflicts of interests involved, and also to demand support and reduce hurdles, for example, in reimbursement by health insurers. Treating parents as patients will (1) help the affected child (the primary patient), as unhealthy and/or mentally unstable parents are likely to negatively influence a child's treatment and (2) prevent the parents (the secondary patients) from becoming primary patients themselves due to their suffering because of their child's illness. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to answer two questions: Can spin be treated as a determinable? Can a treatment of spin as a determinable be used to understand quantum indeterminacy? In response to the first question I show that the relations among spin number, spin components and spin values cannot be captured by a single determination relation; instead we need to look at spin number and spin value separately. In response to the second question I discuss three ways in which (...) the determinables model might be modified to account for indeterminacy, and argue that none of them is fully successful in helping us to understand quantum indeterminacy. (shrink)

This paper defends revealed preference theory against a pervasive line of criticism, according to which revealed preference methodology relies on appealing to some mental states, in particular an agent’s beliefs, rendering the project incoherent or unmotivated. I argue that all that is established by these arguments is that revealed preference theorists must accept a limited mentalism in their account of the options an agent should be modelled as choosing between. This is consistent both with an essentially behavioural interpretation of preference (...) and with standard revealed preference methodology. And it does not undermine the core motivations of revealed preference theory. (shrink)

Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our successful theories are at least partly true, and that the entities referred to by the theoretical terms of these theories exist. Antirealists about science deny one or more of these claims. A sizable minority of philosophers of science prefers not to take sides: they believe the realism debate to be fundamentally mistaken and seek to abstain from it altogether. In analogy with other realism debates (...) I will call these philosophers quietists. In the philosophy of science quietism often takes a somewhat peculiar form, which I will call naturalistic quietism. In this paper I will characterize Maddy’s Second Philosophy as a form of naturalistic quietism, and show what the costs for making it feasible are. (shrink)

Background Moral courage means courage to act according to individual’s own ethical values and principles despite the risk of negative consequences for them. Research about the moral courage of whistle-blowers in health care is scarce, although whistleblowing involves a significant risk for the whistle-blower. Objective To analyse the moral courage of potential whistle-blowers and its association with their background variables in health care. Research design Was a descriptive-correlational study using a questionnaire, containing Nurses Moral Courage Scale©, a video vignette of (...) the wrongdoing situation with an open question about the vignette, and several background variables. Data were analysed statistically and inductive content analysis was used for the narratives. Participants and research context Nurses as healthcare professionals (including registered nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and nurse paramedics) were recruited from the membership register of the Nurses’ Association via email in 2019. A total of 454 nurses responded. The research context was simulated using a vignette. Ethical considerations Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed. Permission to use the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale© was obtained from the copyright holder. The ethical approval and permission to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and the Nurses’ Association. Findings The mean value of potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage on a Visual Analogue Scale (0–10) was 8.55 and the mean score was 4.34 on a 5-point Likert scale. Potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage was associated with their socio-demographics, education, work, personality and social responsibility related background variables. Discussion and conclusion In health care, potential whistle-blowers seem to be quite morally courageous actors. The results offer opportunities for developing interventions, practices and education to support and encourage healthcare professionals in their whistleblowing. Research is needed for developing a theoretical construction to eventually increase whistleblowing and decrease and prevent wrongdoing. (shrink)

In “Obligations of the Gift,” Lee argues that ethical thinking regarding return of genetic research results has been too narrowly focused on individual consent and participants’ “right to kn...

Ariane Fischer, David Woodruff, and Johanna Bockman have translated Karl Polanyi’s “Sozialistische Rechnungslegung” [“Socialist Accounting”] from 1922. In this article, Polanyi laid out his model of a future socialism, a world in which the economy is subordinated to society. Polanyi described the nature of this society and a kind of socialism that he would remain committed to his entire life. Accompanying the translation is the preface titled “Socialism and the embedded economy.” In the preface, Bockman explains the historical context (...) of the article and its significance to the socialist calculation debate, the social sciences, and socialism more broadly. Based on her reading of the accounting and society that Polanyi offers here, Bockman argues that scholars have too narrowly used Polanyi’s work to support the Keynesian welfare state to the exclusion of other institutions, have too broadly used his work to study social institutions indiscriminately, and have not recognized that his work shares fundamental commonalities with and often unacknowledged distinctions from neoclassical economics. (shrink)

Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This question has played an important role in recent discussion of laws of nature. I argue that not all laws of nature are necessary in the same way: conservation laws are perhaps to be regarded as metaphysically necessary. This sheds light on both the modal character of conservation laws and the relationship between different varieties of necessity.

Behavioural economics has taught us that human agents don't always display consistent, context-independent and stable preferences in their choice behaviour. Can we nevertheless do welfare economics...

Risk-weighted expected utility theory is motivated by small-world problems like the Allais paradox, but it is a grand-world theory by nature. And, at the grand-world level, its ability to handle the Allais paradox is dubious. The REU model described in Risk and Rationality turns out to be risk-seeking rather than risk-averse on one natural way of formulating the Allais gambles in the grand-world context. This result illustrates a general problem with the case for REU theory, we argue. There is a (...) tension between the small-world thinking marshaled against standard expected utility theory, and the grand-world thinking inherent to the risk-weighted alternative. (shrink)

We explore aversion to the use of algorithms in moral decision-making. So far, this aversion has been explained mainly by the fear of opaque decisions that are potentially biased. Using incentivized experiments, we study which role the desire for human discretion in moral decision-making plays. This seems justified in light of evidence suggesting that people might not doubt the quality of algorithmic decisions, but still reject them. In our first study, we found that people prefer humans with decision-making discretion to (...) algorithms that rigidly apply exogenously given human-created fairness principles to specific cases. In the second study, we found that people do not prefer humans to algorithms because they appreciate flesh-and-blood decision-makers per se, but because they appreciate humans’ freedom to transcend fairness principles at will. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of algorithm aversion. They indicate that emphasizing the transparency of algorithms that clearly follow fairness principles might not be the only element for fostering societal algorithm acceptance and suggest reconsidering certain features of the decision-making process. (shrink)

This paper argues that instrumental rationality is more permissive than expected utility theory. The most compelling instrumentalist argument in favour of separability, its core requirement, is that agents with non-separable preferences end up badly off by their own lights in some dynamic choice problems. I argue that once we focus on the question of whether agents’ attitudes to uncertain prospects help define their ends in their own right, or instead only assign instrumental value in virtue of the outcomes they may (...) lead to, we see that the argument must fail. Either attitudes to prospects assign non-instrumental value in their own right, in which case we cannot establish the irrationality of the dynamic choice behaviour of agents with non-separable preferences. Or they don’t, in which case agents with non-separable preferences can avoid the problematic choice behaviour without adopting separable preferences. (shrink)

This article argues that previous research on the outcomes of corporate responsibility should be refined in two ways. First, although there is abundant research that addresses the link between corporate responsibility (CR) and financial performance, hardly any studies scrutinize whether the type of corporate responsibility makes a difference to this link. Second, while the majority of CR research conducted within business studies concentrates on the financial outcomes for the firm, the societal outcomes of CR are left largely unexplored. To tackle (...) these two deficiencies, this article extends the different conceptualizations of corporate responsibility and elaborates both the financial and the societal outcomes of different types of CR. (shrink)

Regulatory Competition -- The Economic Case for Regulatory Competition -- Regulatory Competition and Utilitarianism -- Political Values under Competitive Pressure -- Law as a Contested Commodity -- Conclusion.

In this article I argue that Butler and Benhabib work with models of the self that should be jettisoned. Butler relies on what I call the outside-to-inside model, while Benhabib shuttles between an outside-to-inside and an inside-to-outside model. Because of the inherent limitations of these models neither can do what both authors set out to do, which is to describe the ontogeny of the self. I trace their discussions over the course of their writings and then propose that the notion (...) of emergence that one finds in Developmental Systems Theory offers a much better starting point for account of the nature and development of the self. (shrink)

In 'How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims', Alex Voorhoeve suggests accommodating intuitions about duties in rescue cases by combining aggregative and non-aggregative elements into one theory. In this paper, I discuss two problems Voorhoeve’s theory faces as a result of requiring a cyclic pattern of choice, and argue that his attempt to solve them does not succeed.

Judgementalism is an interpretation of normative decision theory according to which preferences are all-things-considered judgements of relative desirability, and the only attitudes that rationally constrain choice. The defence of judgementalism we find in Richard Bradley’s Decision Theory with a Human Face relies on a kind of internalism about the requirements of rationality, according to which they supervene on an agent’s mental states, and in particular those she can reason from. I argue that even if we grant such internalism, attitudes other (...) than preferences in the judgementalist sense rationally constrain choice. This ultimately supports a different interpretation of preference. (shrink)

In the dynamic choice literature, temptations are usually understood as temporary shifts in an agent’s preferences. What has been puzzling about these cases is that, on the one hand, an agent seems to do better by her own lights if she does not give into the temptation, and does so without engaging in costly commitment strategies. This seems to indicate that it is instrumentally irrational for her to give into temptation. On the other hand, resisting temptation also requires her to (...) act contrary to the preferences she has at the time of temptation. But that seems to be instrumentally irrational as well. I here consider the two most prominent types of argument why resisting temptation could nevertheless be instrumentally rational, namely two-tier and intra-personal cooperation arguments. I establish that the arguments either fail or are redundant. In particular, the arguments fail under the pervasive assumption in both decision theory and the wider literature on practical rationality that the agent’s preferences over the objects of choice are themselves the standard of instrumental rationality. And they either still fail or they become redundant when we give up that assumption. (shrink)

The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation on critical phenomenology with reflections on its method. The key argument is that critical phenomenology should be understood as a form of historico-transcendental inquiry and therefore it cannot forgo the phenomenological reduction. Rather, this methodological step should be centered in critical phenomenology, and appropriated in problematized and rethought forms. The methodological assessment of critical phenomenology has implications also for how we read its canon. The paper shows that while Simone de Beauvoir (...) did not adopt the phenomenological reduction in its full Husserlian meaning, her analyses of experience did not remain on the level of personal or experiential description either. The contention is that if we want to read her as a critical phenomenologist, we should focus on her seminal modification of the historico-transcendental method of phenomenology. (shrink)

In her book, Oksala shows that the arguments for the ineliminability of violence from the political are often based on excessively broad, ontological conceptions of violence distinct from its concrete and physical meaning and, on the other hand, on a restrictively narrow and empirical understanding of politics as the realm of conventional political institutions.

Habermas’ account of the radically intersubjective constitution of subjectivity is of great use to feminist theorists, as is his defense of the rational character of normative claims. Feminists must however, reject his reductive identification of subjectivity with language and rationality. Some feminists’ concerns insist on continuing to distinguish morality from legality, something that Habermas, despite his own better intuitions and arguments, is sometimes disinclined to do.

The contributors to Nervous Systems reassess contemporary artists' and critics' engagement with social, political, biological, and other systems as a set of complex and relational parts: an approach commonly known as systems thinking. Demonstrating the continuing relevance of systems aesthetics within contemporary art, the contributors highlight the ways that artists adopt systems thinking to address political, social, and ecological anxieties. They cover a wide range of artists and topics, from the performances of the Argentinian collective the Rosario Group and the (...) grid drawings of Charles Gaines to the video art of Singaporean artist Charles Lim and the mapping of global logistics infrastructures by contemporary artists like Hito Steyerl and Christoph Büchel. Together, the essays offer an expanded understanding of systems aesthetics in ways that affirm its importance beyond technological applications detached from cultural contexts. (shrink)

The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation on critical phenomenology with reflections on its method. The key argument is that critical phenomenology should be understood as a form of historico-transcendental inquiry and therefore it cannot forgo the phenomenological reduction. Rather, this methodological step should be centered in critical phenomenology, and appropriated in problematized and rethought forms. The methodological assessment of critical phenomenology has implications also for how we read its canon. The paper shows that while Simone de Beauvoir (...) did not adopt the phenomenological reduction in its full Husserlian meaning, her analyses of experience did not remain on the level of personal or experiential description either. The contention is that if we want to read her as a critical phenomenologist, we should focus on her seminal modification of the historico-transcendental method of phenomenology. (shrink)

How does literature engage with the legacies of Empire? This article examines how imperial decline and nation building are reflected in textual production after the First World War. With Turkey as a case study, it focuses on the post-imperial narrative as a form of narration dealing with the experience of imperial loss, political contingency and possibilities of national belonging. I argue that Turkey’s post-imperial condition is shaped by coming to terms with the loss of the Ottoman Empire, on the one (...) hand, and a nationalising present embedded in the experience of Western-dominated modernity, on the other. Against this backdrop, I examine essays from the compilations Yaşadığım Gibi (1970, ‘As I lived’) and Beş Şehir (1946, ‘Five Cities’) by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, a key intellectual of the early republican era. The analysis of these post-imperial narratives reveals how Tanpınar tries to root Turkey’s national modernity in selected elements of the imperial past. For Tanpınar, continuity with (Turkified) imperial heritage is a prerequisite for a strong nation-state. (shrink)

Discourse ethics represents an exciting new development in neo-Kantian moral theory. William Rehg offers an insightful introduction to its complex theorization by its major proponent, Jürgen Habermas, and demonstrates how discourse ethics allows one to overcome the principal criticisms that have been leveled against neo-Kantianism. Addressing both "commun-itarian" critics who argue that universalist conceptions of justice sever moral deliberation from community traditions, and feminist advocates of the "ethics of care" who stress the moral significance of caring for other individuals, Rehg (...) shows that discourse ethics combines impartiality with solidarity. He provides the first systematic reconstruction of Habermas's theory and explores its relationship to the work of such contemporary philosophers as Charles Taylor. His book articulates a bold alternative to the split between the "right" and the "good" in moral theory and will greatly interest philosophers, social and legal scholars, and political theorists. (shrink)

Full ectogenesis as the complete externalization of human reproduction by bypassing the bodily processes of gestation and childbirth can be considered the culmination of genetic and reproductive technologies. Despite its still being a hypothetical scenario, it has been discussed for decades as the ultimate means to liberate women from their reproductive tasks in society and hence finally end fundamental gender injustices generally. In the debate about the application of artificial wombs to achieve gender equality, one aspect is barely mentioned but (...) is of crucial relevance from a medical‐ethical perspective: whether and how could full ectogenesis be justified as a proper use of medicine? After characterizing the technology as a special form of human enhancement and as an extension of medical practice that goes beyond the traditional field of medicine, this paper critically assesses the theoretical possibilities of legitimizing this extension. We identify two ways of justification: either one argues that ectogenesis fulfils a proper goal of medicine (a justification we call pathologization), or one argues that the application of ectogenesis achieves a non‐medical goal (which we call medicalization). Because it is important from a medical‐ethical point of view to avoid an inappropriate instrumentalization or misuse of medicine and thus an undue medicalization of non‐medical problems, a set of necessary conditions has to be met. It is doubtful whether full ectogenesis for non‐medical purposes could fulfil these conditions. Rather, its comprehensive usage could be seen as a revolutionary modification of what it means to be human. (shrink)