Intelligence on mass media audiences was founded on representative statistical samples, analysed by statisticians at the market departments of media corporations. The techniques for aggregating user data in the age of pervasive and ubiquitous personal media build on large aggregates of information analysed by algorithms that transform data into commodities. While the former technologies were built on socio-economic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, media preferences, Big Data technologies register consumer choice, geographical position, web movement, and behavioural information in (...) technologically complex ways that for most lay people are too abstract to appreciate the full consequences of. The data mined for pattern recognition privileges relational rather than demographic qualities. We argue that the agency of interpretation at the bottom of market decisions within media companies nevertheless introduces a ‘heuristics of the algorithm’, where the data inevitably becomes translated into social categories. In the paper we argue that although the promise of algorithmically generated data is often implemented in automated systems where human agency gets increasingly distanced from the data collected, one can observe a felt need among media users and among industry actors to ‘translate back’ the algorithmically produced relational statistics into ‘traditional’ social parameters. The tenacious social structures within the advertising industries work against the techno-economically driven tendencies within the Big Data economy. (shrink)

Recognition and Freedom offers up-to-date discussions of Axel Honneth’s political thought by ten experts in the field. It also includes an interview with Honneth and an essay by him on education and democracy, previously unpublished in English.

It is commonly argued that natural language has the expressive power of quantifying over intensional entities, such as times, worlds, or situations. A standard way of modelling this assumes that there are unpronounced but syntactically represented variables of the corresponding type. Not all that much as has been said, however, about the exact syntactic location of these variables. Meanwhile, recent work has highlighted a number of problems that arise because the interpretive options for situation pronouns seem to be subject to (...) various restrictions. This paper is primarily concerned with situation pronouns inside of determiner phrases, arguing that they are introduced as arguments of (certain) determiners. Verbal predicates, on the other hand, are assumed to not combine with a situation pronoun. The various restrictions on their interpretation are shown to fall out from the semantic system that is developed based on that view. Further support for such an account comes from situation semantic analyses of donkey sentences as well as data on the temporal interpretation of nominal predicates. Its ability to account for this full range of data in a unified manner is shown to set it apart from previous proposals. The paper closes with an outlook on further extensions, including an account of quantifier domain restriction based on situation pronouns. (shrink)

We will look critically at three essays by Cora Diamond concerning Peter Winch's views on the possibility of communication and criticism between language-games. We briefly present our understanding of Winch's approach to philosophy. Then, we argue that Diamond misidentifies Winch's views, taking them to imply language-game relativism or linguistic idealism. When she does raise valid criticisms against language-game relativism, her critical points mainly coincide with things that Winch has already stressed in his own work. That leaves us with the question (...) what their real disagreement amounts to. Finally, we suggest that at the bottom of Diamond's objections lies her failure to appreciate Winch's insights about the place of logic in human intercourse. (shrink)

This is a review of contemporary philosophical discussions of population policies. The focus is on normative justification, and the main question is whether population policies can be ethically justified. Although few analytical philosophers have directly addressed this question – it has been discussed more in other academic fields – many arguments and considerations can be placed in the analytical philosophical discourse. This article offers a comprehensive review and analysis of ethically relevant aspects of population policies evaluated on the basis of (...) the main ethical theories. This analysis is preceded by a brief historical contextualisation of when and how population policies became ethically contentious and how this relates to philosophical debates in environmental ethics, population ethics and political philosophy. The article also includes a conceptual analysis of population policies in which the empirical intricacies around individual fertility decisions are sorted out and the different ways in which they can be affected are categorised in a taxonomy which highlight the most relevant ethical aspects of population policies. The ethical analysis shows that while population policies can be justified on the basis of most ethical theories, it all depends on what prior assumptions are made about what is at stake. (shrink)

According to John Rawls’s famous Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justifiable to all citizens. The currently dominant interpretation of what is justifiable to persons in this sense is an internalist one. On this view, what is justifiable to persons depends on their beliefs and commitments. In this paper I challenge this reading of Rawls’s principle, and instead suggest that it is most plausibly interpreted in externalist terms. On this alternative view, (...) what is justifiable to persons is not in any way dependent on, or relativized to, their beliefs and commitments. Instead, what is justifiable to all in the relevant sense is what all could accept as free and equal. I defend this reinterpretation of the view by showing how it is supported by Rawls’s account of the freedom and equality of persons. In addition, a considerable advantage of this suggestion is that it allows for an inclusive account of to whom the exercise of political power must be made justifiable. (shrink)

Rational agents are supposed to maximize expected utility. But what are the options from which they choose? I outline some constraints on an adequate representation of an agent’s options. The options should, for example, contain no information of which the agent is unsure. But they should be sufficiently rich to distinguish all available acts from one another. These demands often come into conflict, so that there seems to be no adequate representation of the options at all. After reviewing existing proposals (...) for how to construe decision-theoretic options and finding them all wanting, I suggest that our model of rational agents should include a special domain of ‘virtual’ option propositions to serve as formal objects of deliberation and choice. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable for conceptual change through interaction. We focus on different socio‐cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students’ intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio‐cognitive conflict instructional paradigm. (...) After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio‐cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predicted conceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration. (shrink)

Despite remarkable empirical and methodological advances, our theoretical understanding of the evolutionary processes that made us human remains fragmented and contentious. Here, we make the radical proposition that the cultural communities within which Homo emerged may be understood as a novel exotic form of organism. The argument begins from a deep congruence between robust features of Pan community life cycles and protocell models of the origins of life. We argue that if a cultural tradition, meeting certain requirements, arises in the (...) context of such a “social protocell,” the outcome will be an evolutionary transition in individuality whereby traditions and hominins coalesce into a macroscopic bio-socio-technical system, with an organismal organization that is culturally inherited through irreversible fission events on the community level. We refer to the resulting hypothetical evolutionary individual as a “sociont.” The social protocell provides a preadapted source of alignment of fitness interests that addresses a number of open questions about the origins of shared adaptive cultural organization, and the derived genetic adaptations that support them. Also, social cooperation between hominins is no longer in exclusive focus since cooperation among traditions becomes salient in this model. This provides novel avenues for explanation. We go on to hypothesize that the fate of the hominin in such a setting would be mutualistic coadaptation into a part-whole relation with the sociont, and we propose that the unusual suite of derived features in Homo is consistent with this hypothesis. (shrink)

Despite remarkable empirical and methodological advances, our theoretical understanding of the evolutionary processes that made us human remains fragmented and contentious. Here, we make the radical proposition that the cultural communities within which Homo emerged may be understood as a novel exotic form of organism. The argument begins from a deep congruence between robust features of Pan community life cycles and protocell models of the origins of life. We argue that if a cultural tradition, meeting certain requirements, arises in the (...) context of such a “social protocell,” the outcome will be an evolutionary transition in individuality whereby traditions and hominins coalesce into a macroscopic bio-socio-technical system, with an organismal organization that is culturally inherited through irreversible fission events on the community level. We refer to the resulting hypothetical evolutionary individual as a “sociont.” The social protocell provides a preadapted source of alignment of fitness interests that addresses a number of open questions about the origins of shared adaptive cultural organization, and the derived genetic adaptations that support them. Also, social cooperation between hominins is no longer in exclusive focus since cooperation among traditions becomes salient in this model. This provides novel avenues for explanation. We go on to hypothesize that the fate of the hominin in such a setting would be mutualistic coadaptation into a part-whole relation with the sociont, and we propose that the unusual suite of derived features in Homo is consistent with this hypothesis. (shrink)

According to a standard account of incomparability, two value bearers are incomparable if it is false that there holds a positive value relation between them. Due to the vagueness of the comparative predicates it may also be indeterminate as to which relation that holds - for each relation it is neither true nor false that it holds. John Broome has argued that indeterminacy cannot coexist with incomparability and since there seems to exist indeterminacy there cannot exist incomparability. At the core (...) of his argument lies the collapsing principle. There are several arguments against this principle; Erik Carlson has advanced most of these. In this paper two strategies in dealing with these arguments are discussed. One strategy is to deny the existence of a certain kind of properties; another strategy that has been advanced by Christian Constantinescu is to restrict the collapsing principle. In the paper it is argued that the first of these strategies is the most promising strategy. A novel argument in favour of this strategy is presented and several objections to the strategy are rebutted. Finally it is concluded that, even though this strategy deals with most objections, without a better argument in favour of the principle the debate seems to run into a stalemate. (shrink)

Recently a lot has been written on the topic of value incomparability. While there is disagreement on how we are to understand incomparability, most seem to accept Ruth Chang's claim that all comparisons must proceed in some specific respect. Call this the Requirement for Specification. Interestingly, even though most seem to accept this requirement, next to nothing has been written on it. In this paper I focus on the requirement and discuss two different but related topics. First, an important observation (...) is made: as it turns out, the requirement plays an important explanatory role for the thesis that incomparability is to be understood in terms of vagueness. Second, I consider what is entailed by the Requirement for Specification. There is a general worry that the requirement entails that there is no such thing as goodness simpliciter. The line of thought is that if we always must specify in which way something is e.g., better than something else, then perhaps things cannot be better simpliciter. And if there is no such thing as betterness-simpliciter, then can there be such a thing as goodness simpliciter? Finally, I consider how an answer to this question affects the view that incomparability is vagueness. (shrink)

In this paper, I identify and provide an explanation for a heretofore unrecognized puzzle in feminist aesthetics and the philosophy of horror. Many horror movie fans have an aversion to rape scenes. This is puzzling because genre fans are not equally bothered by the depiction of other types of violence and cruelty. I argue that we can make sense of this selective aversion by appeal to the notion of ‘distance’, which philosophers of horror use to explain why people are attracted (...) to horror movies in the first place. When we consume horror, we ‘distance’ ourselves from the scary things depicted, which allows other mechanisms to kick in that lead to overall enjoyment. I argue that ‘distance’ often collapses when viewers are confronted with depictions of rape because rape is common in real life and a gendered form of violence that is implicated in social injustice. (shrink)

According to Ruth Chang the three standard positive value relations: “better than”, “worse than” and “equally good” do not fully exhaust the conceptual space for positive value relations. According to her, there is room for a fourth positive value relation, which she calls “parity”. Her argument for parity comes in three parts. First, she argues that there are items that are not related by the standard three value relations. Second, that these items are not incomparable, and third, that the phenomena (...) she has focused on are not due to the vagueness of the comparative predicates. This paper focuses on the second part of the argument and an objection is presented. By assuming the Small Unidimensional Difference Principle, which is a key premise for the second part of the argument, Chang’s argument could be accused of begging the question. More so, by assuming this principle, the space for incomparability gets severely limited. If these worries are justified, then Chang’s argument for parity as a fourth form of comparability is unsuccessful. (shrink)

As identity and authenticity discourses increasingly saturate everyday life, so too have these concepts spread across the humanities and social sciences literatures. Many scholars may be interested in identity and authenticity, but lack knowledge of paradigmatic or disciplinary approaches to these concepts. This volume offers readers insight into social constructionist approaches to identity and authenticity. It focuses on the processes of identification and authentication, rather than on subjective experiences of selfhood. There are no attempts to settle what authentic identities are. (...) On the contrary, contributors demonstrate that neither identities nor their authenticity have a single or fixed meaning. Chapters provide exemplars of contemporary research on identity and authenticity, with significant diversity among them in terms of the identities, cultural milieu, geographic settings, disciplinary traditions, and methodological approaches considered. Contributors introduce readers to a number of established and emerging identity groups from sites around the world, from yogis and punks to fire dancers and social media influencers. Their conceptual work stretches from the micro-analytic to the ethno-national as authors employ a variety of qualitative methods including ethnographic fieldwork, interviewing, and the collection and analysis of naturally-occurring interactions. Several of the chapters look directly at identification and authentication, while others focus on the social and cultural backdrops that structure these practices-what unites them is the adoption of social constructionist sensibilities. This book will appeal to anyone interested in understanding identity and authenticity. (shrink)

. Undoubtedly, multinational corporations must play a significant role in the advancement of global ecological ethics. Our research offers a glimpse into the process of how goals of ecological sustainability in one multinational corporation can trickle down through the organization via the sustainability support behaviors of supervisors. We asked the question “How do supervisors in a multinational corporation internalize their corporation’s commitment to ecological sustainability and, in turn, behave in ways that convey this commitment to their subordinates?” In response, we (...) created a theoretical framework for supervisor sustainability support behavior based on Stern et al., Human Ecology Review 6(2), 81-97 (1999) value-belief-norm (VBN) theory. We then tested our framework by performing a survey-based field study of supervisors in a multinational pharmaceutical company that has publicly professed a goal of ecological sustainability. (shrink)

This article discusses the phenomenon of normative resilience, with a focus on evaluative resilience. An object can become more or less valuable. In addition to this change in an object's value, the object's value can become more or less resilient. If it is less resilient, it cannot withstand as much evaluative change without its degree of value changing, as compared to an object with more resilient value. The article consists of three parts. First, examples of resilience are presented to give (...) the reader an intuitive understanding of the phenomenon, Second, the Fitting Attitudes Analysis of value is invoked to provide a formal account of evaluative resilience. Third, the theoretical and practical advantages of acknowledging the existence of evaluative resilience are brought to light. (shrink)

BackgroundIn Sweden, individuals with visual field loss have their driving license withdrawn. The literature clearly indicates that individuals with VFL are unsafe drivers on a group level. However, many drivers with VFL can be safe on an individual level. The literature also suggests that self-perception, beliefs, and insights of one’s own capabilities are related to driving performance. This study had three aims: To investigate self-perceived driving capability ratings for individuals with VFL; to compare these ratings between groups with different medical (...) conditions associated with VFL ; and to relate the self-perception ratings to actual driving performance in an advanced driving simulator.MethodsParticipants comprised 723 individuals whose driver’s license had been withdrawn because of VFL and 92 normally sighted elderly individuals. All participants completed a background survey, rated difficulties with different traffic situations, rated their strengths and weaknesses as drivers, and rated aspects that were important for causing traffic accidents. Of the VFL group participants, 264 also completed a simulator-based driving test that they knew could lead to renewal of their driving license. VFL participants and normally sighted was at the same age when they completed the simulator driving test.ResultsOverall, individuals with VFL rated their capabilities as high on all instruments and scales used, even higher than the elderly normally sighted control group. The only VFL etiology group that rated lower than other groups was the diabetes group. Safety orientation and internal control orientation values were best at discriminating between VFL participants in terms of self-perception of driving performance. Participants categorized as “high” in terms of safety skills and internal control were more modest in their ratings. Finally, participants who passed the simulated driving test did not differ from those who failed, in any of the self-perception measures.ConclusionSelf-perception ratings among individuals with VFL were higher than those of normally sighted elderly individuals. Self-assessed skills did not predict driving performance. Groups with different VFL etiologies rated similarly. Self-ratings of driving abilities cannot be used to assess actual driving performance. Actual driving tests are necessary to discriminate between safe and unsafe drivers with VFL. (shrink)

Rwanda is often depicted as a success story by policy makers when it comes to issues of gender. In this paper, we show how the problem of gendered inequality in agriculture nevertheless is both marginalized and instrumentalized in Rwanda’s agriculture policy. Our in-depth analysis of 12 national policies is informed by Bacchi’s _What’s the problem represented to be?_ approach. It attests that gendered inequality is largely left unproblematized as well as reduced to a problem of women’s low agricultural productivity. The (...) policy focuses on framing the symptoms and effects of gendered inequality and turns gender mainstreaming into an instrument for national economic growth. We argue that by insufficiently addressing the socio-political underlying causes of gendered inequality, Rwanda’s agriculture policy risks reproducing and exacerbating inequalities by reinforcing dominant gender relations and constructing women farmers as problematic and men as normative farmers. We call for the policy to approach gendered inequality in alternative ways. Drawing on perspectives in feminist political ecology, we discuss how such alternatives could allow policy to more profoundly challenge underlying structural constraints such as unequal gender relations of power, gender norms, and gender divisions of work. This would shift policy’s problematizing lens from economic growth to social justice, and from women’s shortcomings and disadvantages in agriculture to the practices and relations that perpetuate inequality. In the long term, this could lead to transformed gender norms and power relations, and a more just and equal future beyond what the dominant agricultural development discourse currently permits. (shrink)

Drawing on John Dewey and the later Ludwig Wittgenstein, this book employs philosophy as a conceptual resource to develop new methodological and analytical tools for conducting in situ empirical investigations. Chapter one explores the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Dewey. Chapter two exposits Deweyan ideas of embodiment, the primacy of the aesthetic encounter, and aesthetically expressive meaning underdeveloped in Wittgenstein. Chapter three introduces the method of practical epistemological analysis and a model of situated epistemic relations to investigate the learning of body (...) techniques in dinghy sailing. The concluding chapter introduces a model of situated artistic relations to investigate the learning of artistic techniques of self-expression in the Swedish sloyd classroom. (shrink)

In the so-called reverse proportional reading :53, 1997), the truth conditions of statements of the form many/few \\ appear to make reference to the ratio of the individuals that are in the extensions of both \ and \ to the individuals that are in the extension of \. The analysis of such readings is controversial. One prominent approach assumes they are a symptom of many and few making reference to a context dependent standard of comparison. We observe that this initially (...) attractive approach systematically undergenerates, failing to capture pervasive reverse proportionality in environments that remove context dependency of the standard. Instead, we propose that reverse proportionality in such cases can arise from the underspecification of the measure function underlying the meanings of many and few. (shrink)

In the so-called reverse proportional reading :53, 1997), the truth conditions of statements of the form many/few \\ appear to make reference to the ratio of the individuals that are in the extensions of both \ and \ to the individuals that are in the extension of \. The analysis of such readings is controversial. One prominent approach assumes they are a symptom of many and few making reference to a context dependent standard of comparison. We observe that this initially (...) attractive approach systematically undergenerates, failing to capture pervasive reverse proportionality in environments that remove context dependency of the standard. Instead, we propose that reverse proportionality in such cases can arise from the underspecification of the measure function underlying the meanings of many and few. (shrink)

Our contemporary condition is deeply infused with scientific-technological rationales. These influence and shape our ethical reasoning on war, including the moral status of civilians and the moral choices available to us. In this article, I discuss how technology shapes and directs the moral choices available to us by setting parameters for moral deliberation. I argue that technology has moral significance for just war thinking, yet this is often overlooked in attempts to assess who is liable to harm in war and (...) to what extent. This omission produces an undue deference to technological authority, reducing combatants, civilians and scenarios to data points. If we are to develop a maximally restrictive framework for harming civilians in war, which in my view should be a goal of just war thinking, then it is imperative that the scientific-technological dimension of contemporary war is given due attention. (shrink)

In his “The simple argument for subclassical logic,” Jc Beall advances an argument that led him to take FDE as the one true logic (the latter point is explicitly made clear in his “FDE as the One True Logic”). The aim of this article is to point out that if we follow Beall’s line of reasoning for endorsing FDE, there are at least two additional reasons to consider that FDE is too strong for Beall’s purposes. In fact, we claim that (...) Beall should consider another weaker subclassical logic as the logic adequate for his project. To this end, we first briefly present Beall’s argument for FDE. Then, we discuss two specific topics that seem to motivate us to weaken FDE. We then introduce a subsystem that will enjoy all the benefits of Beall’s suggestion. (shrink)

Timothy Michael Fowler has argued that, as a consequence of their commitment to neutrality in regard to comprehensive doctrines, political liberals face a dilemma. In essence, the dilemma for political liberals is that either they have to give up their commitment to neutrality (which is an indispensible part of their view), or they have to allow harm to children. Fowler’s case for this dilemma depends on ascribing to political liberals a view which grants parents a great degree of freedom in (...) deciding on the education of their children. I show that ascribing this view to political liberals rests upon a misinterpretation of political liberalism. Since political liberals have access to reasons based upon the interests of children, they need not yield to parent’s wishes about the education of their children. A correct understanding of political liberalism thus shows that political liberals do not face the dilemma envisaged by Fowler. (shrink)

Background Disclosure of obtaining informed consent from patients (ICP) and research ethics committee (REC) approval in published reports is sometimes omitted. To date, no disclosure data are available on surgical research. Objective Our aim was to assess whether REC approval and ICP were documented in surgical trials. Study design Overall, 657 randomised trials, published between 2005 and 2010 in 10 international journals, were included. We collected the report rate of REC approval and ICP and contacted the corresponding author when ethical (...) information was lacking. Results Among the 657 randomised controlled trials (RCT), 576 (87.7%) stated that an REC had approved the research, and 606 (92.2%) stated that ICP had been requested. Furthermore, 28 RCTs (4.3%) reported neither REC nor ICP. Conclusions The phase III randomised surgical trials that were analysed were shown to have respected fundamental ethical principles in approximately 90% of the cases examines. (shrink)

By setting up a dialogue with contemporary animal research the essay attempts, on the one hand, to expose the limits of Martin Heidegger’s concept of animality in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and, on the other hand, to propose some new ways of thinking the being of those animals that most distinctly show themselves as being other than Heidegger’s claims. I suggest, with reference to Heidegger’s thesis of the animal as “poor in world,” that the being of the cognitively most (...) complex animals is better understood in terms of otherworldly worlds within the world of human world forming. With this concept I aim to develop and continue, rather than criticize, Heidegger’s way of thinking the being of animals and deepen the productive relationship between science and philosophy that Heidegger proposed in this work. (shrink)

Background: Informal coercion, that is, situations where caregivers use subtle coercive measures to impose their will on patients, is common in adult psychiatric inpatient care. It has been described as ‘a necessary evil’, confronting nurses with an ethical dilemma where they need to balance between a wish to do good, and the risk of violating patients’ dignity and autonomy. Aim: To describe nurses’ experiences of being involved in informal coercion in adult psychiatric inpatient care. Research design: The study has a (...) qualitative, inductive design. Participants and research context: Semi-structured interviews with 10 Swedish psychiatric nurses were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Ethical considerations: The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. In line with the Swedish Ethical Review Act, it was also subject to ethical procedures at the university. Findings: Four domains comprise informal coercion as a process over time. These domains contain 11 categories focusing on different experiences involved in the process: Striving to connect, involving others, adjusting to the caring culture, dealing with laws, justifying coercion, waiting for the patient, persuading the patient, negotiating with the patient, using professional power, scrutinizing one’s actions and learning together. Discussion: Informal coercion is associated with moral stress as nurses might find themselves torn between a wish to do good for the patient, general practices and ‘house rules’ in the caring culture. In addition, nurses need to be aware of the asymmetry of the caring relationship, in order to avoid compliance becoming a consequence of patients subordinating to nurse power, rather than a result of mutual understanding. Reflections are thus necessary through the process to promote mutual learning and to avoid violations of patients’ dignity and autonomy. Conclusion: If there is a need for coercion, that is, if the coercion is found to be an ‘unpleasant good’, rather than ‘necessary evil’ considering the consequences for the patient, it should be subject to reflecting and learning together with the patient. (shrink)

The Will Theory of Rights has commonly been criticized for excluding from the class of rights bearers all subjects who are incapable of agency. The Interest Theory of Rights faces the challenge of avoiding undue proliferation of the class of rights bearers. I advance a novel argument for a specific demarcation of the class of rights bearers. I then argue that this demarcation implies that the function of the moral rights of subjects incapable of exercising agency is to protect them (...) from being treated with illegitimate disregard in a certain sense. I advance reasons for holding that this theory is neither a Will Theory nor an Interest Theory, or a combination of these theories. The proposed account is significant also if it is interpreted as a version of the Interest Theory. It brings significant benefits in the form of cohesiveness, simplicity, and intuitive appeal. (shrink)

Violent video games (VVGs) are a source of serious and continuing controversy. They are not unique in this respect, though. Other entertainment products have been criticized on moral grounds, from pornography to heavy metal, horror films, and Harry Potter books. Some of these controversies have fizzled out over time and have come to be viewed as cases of moral panic. Others, including moral objections to VVGs, have persisted. The aim of this paper is to determine which, if any, of the (...) concerns raised about VVGs are legitimate. We argue that common moral objections to VVGs are unsuccessful, but that a plausible critique can be developed that captures the insights of these objections while avoiding their pitfalls. Our view suggests that the moral badness of a game depends on how well its internal logic expresses or encourages the players’ objectionable attitudes. This allows us to recognize that some games are morally worse than others—and that it can be morally wrong to design and play some VVGs—but that the moral badness of these games is not necessarily dependent on how violent they are. (shrink)

In everyday language, concepts appear alongside related concepts. Societal biases often emerge in these collocations; e.g., female names collocate with art- related concepts, and African American names collocate with negative concepts. It is unknown whether such collocations merely reflect societal biases or contribute to them. Concepts that are themselves neutral in valence but nevertheless collocate with valenced concepts provide a unique opportunity to address this question. For example, when asked, most people evaluate the concept “cause” as neutral, but “cause” is (...) frequently followed by negative concepts. We use such semantically prosodic concepts to test the influence of collocation on the emergence of implicit bias: do neutral concepts that frequently collocate with valenced concepts have corresponding implicit bias? In evaluative priming tasks, participants evaluated positive/negative nouns or pictures after seeing verb primes that were strongly valenced, neutral in valence but collocated with valenced concepts in corpora, or neutral in valence and not collocated with valenced concepts in corpora. Throughout, neutral primes with positive collocates facilitated the evaluation of positive targets much like strongly valenced primes, whereas neutral primes without valenced collocates did not. That neutral concepts with valenced collocates parallel the influence of valenced concepts suggests that their collocations in natural language may be sufficient for fostering implicit bias. Societal implications of the causal embedding hypothesis are discussed. (shrink)

This article argues that, in order to understand Peter Winch's view of philosophy, it is profitable to read him together with R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history. Collingwood was both an important source for Winch and a thinker engaged in a closely parallel philosophical pursuit. Collingwood and Winch shared the view that philosophy is an effort to understand the various ways in which human beings make reality intelligible. For both, this called for rapprochement between philosophy and the humanities. Like Collingwood, (...) Winch wanted to reformulate philosophy as a form of human science. Both thinkers advanced a conception of logic where the validity of judgements, propositions, and thought are dependent on their function as instruments in human dialogue. In their treatments of logic, Winch and Collingwood were fleshing out their idea that questions concerning human meaningful behaviour also tie back to the question of what philosophical analysis is about. There is a deep connection between two main issues in both Collingwood's and Winch's writings: on the one hand, the need for ‘internal’ understanding of how human beings relate to reality, and on the other hand, their critique of the idea of logic as a self-sufficient system, external to historically embedded forms of life. At the core of their shared vision there was a comprehensive critique of metaphysical realism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I carry out an analysis of an event in Sweden called ‘the spring turnout’. It is a traditional event where cows are allowed out into the fields after the winter. I show how i...

The significance of mediatization in countryside settings is an under-researched topic in media studies. In this paper, based on qualitative fieldwork carried out in two rural areas in Sweden, we study how mediatization integrates the prospects of cosmopolitan social change. The current phase of the mediatization process, which imposes a more dynamic register of networked communication, nourishes a new type of cosmopolitan identity in the countryside. As shown in the study, this development is constituted by complex configurations of different forms (...) of mobility and connectivity. We argue that these spatial processes are socially structured, meaning that certain social groups are better equipped, through the appropriation of network capital, for turning cosmopolitan dispositions into a transformative resource, a ‘cosmopolitan politics of place’. Such alterations of the social structure may successively destabilize the relationship between ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’. (shrink)

This article investigates discourses of Sweden’s success in gender mainstreaming. Using the theoretical concept of myth, discourse analysis is performed on different categories of texts. The aim is to analyse how this discourse of success is constructed and to increase the understanding of its components. The themes identified in the reading include adaptation, integration, volume and initiatives. In conclusion, it is argued that a conflation of gender mainstreaming with gender equality has been a vital part of the construction of Sweden (...) as the best case of gender mainstreaming. (shrink)