This article examines how free movement and mobility are represented in Finnish upper secondary level EU textbooks. There were three such books in use at the time of writing, published in 2007, 2010 and 2014. My methodology is based on the discourse-historical approach outlined by Ruth Wodak, focusing particularly on the various discursive strategies present in the books. I have divided the groups addressed into four levels of mobility thus; ‘EU movers’, ‘restricted EU movers’, ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’. The EU movers (...) were the most positively viewed group; their mobility was often related to work and studies. ‘Restricted EU movers’ refers to citizens of the countries that joined the EU in the twenty-first century, whose ‘invasion’ was allegedly feared by the older member states. Migrants outside the EU were described, inter alia, as a ‘flow of millions of poor people’ eager to enter Europe. Refugees, in turn, were conflated with people applying for asylum without valid grounds, creating a ‘refugee flow’ dealing with which member states needed to assist each other. Overall, this article concurs with the findings of previous studies: school books tend to present those moving within Europe as more agreeable, with less acceptable stereotypical characteristics being attached to extra-EU migrants and minority groups such as the Roma. (shrink)

This article focuses on the long-term impacts and effects of developmental work that began as an arts education project in Helsinki in 2000. Ten years later, five kindergarten leaders were interviewed to gather information about the impacts of the project. The aim was to determine the long-term effects of the project and examine in which ways the impact could still be seen in the daily work in kindergartens. We also explored the reasons and prerequisites for the impacts still showing, and (...) tried to discover which obstacles prevent the ongoing impact of the developmental work. The interviews showed that the sustainability of the impacts was connected to the organizational changes and the longevity of the personnel in the kindergarten. The developmental work could be better taken advantage of when the kindergarten leaders felt the tasks developed in the project were important and offered them new ideas in their pedagogical leadership. A long-lasting developmental project was seen as part of the process of updating education, which confirmed the participants’ consciousness about being a teacher and the nature of the educational practices as well as a reflective manner of working. Participating also increased general developmental skills and interest in other developmental themes. (shrink)

This book shows why we can justify blaming people for their wrong actions even if free will turns out not to exist. Contrary to most contemporary thinking, we do this by focusing on the ordinary, everyday wrongs each of us commits, not on the extra-ordinary, “morally monstrous-like” crimes and weak-willed actions of some.

Many philosophers ignore developments in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences that purport to challenge our ideas of free will and responsibility. The reason for this is that the challenge is often framed as a denial of the idea that we are able to act differently than we do. However, most philosophers think that the ability to do otherwise is irrelevant to responsibility and free will. Rather it is our ability to act for reasons that is crucial. We argue that the (...) scientific findings indicate that it is not so obvious that our views of free will and responsibility can be grounded in the ability to act for reasons without introducing metaphysical obscurities. This poses a challenge to philosophers. We draw the conclusion that philosophers are wrong not to address the recent scientific developments and that scientists are mistaken in formulating their challenge in terms of the freedom to do otherwise. (shrink)

Recent empirical research results in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences on the “adaptive unconscious” show that conscious control and deliberative awareness are not all-pervasive aspects of our everyday dealings with one another. Moral philosophers and other scientists have used these insights to put our moral agency to the test. The results of these tests are intriguing: apparently we are not always (or ever?) the moral agents we take ourselves to be. This paper argues in favor of a refinement of our (...) common perception of moral agency that can accommodate these results; however, it also argues against the suggestion that this refined concept is the result of a radical new understanding of our everyday moral practices. (shrink)

“I demote practical reason from the conductor’s podium on which it is traditionally pictured, leading the performance. I picture practical reason less as an orchestral conductor than as a theatrical prompter — out of sight, following the action in case it needs to be nudged back into an intelligible course.” (David Velleman 2009, p. 4)IntroductionIn this paper I discuss our practice of exchanging explanatory and justifying reasons with one another, that is, reasons with which we explain or justify our actions, (...) choices, and decisions. I argue that the general aim and importance of this practice—as well as the associated ideas of responsibility and free will—is compatible with the finding that we are often, or even most of the time, not deliberatively aware of the reasons for which we act, prior to our acting so. That is, in many cases there are no explicit reasons, considerations we have reflected on and are aware of, that precede our actions. It is in this sense, I argue, that human ag. (shrink)

According to some, contemporary social psychology is aptly described as a study in moral hypocrisy. In this paper we argue that this is unfortunate when understood as establishing that we only care about appearing to act morally, not about true moral action. A philosophically more interesting interpretation of the “moral hypocrisy”-findings understands it to establish that we care so much about morality that it might lead to self-deception about the moral nature of our motives and/or misperceptions regarding what we should (...) or should not do in everyday or experimental situations. In this paper we argue for this claim by elaborating on a fascinating series of experiments by Daniel Batson and his colleagues who have consistently contributed to the moral hypocrisy findings since the late nineties, and showing in what way they contribute to a better understanding of moral agency, rather than undermine the idea that we are moral agents. (shrink)

Adina Roskies has argued that worries that recent developments in the neurosciences challenge our ideas of free will and responsibility are misguided. Her argument focuses on the idea that we are able to act differently than we do. However, according to a dominant view in contemporary philosophy, the ability to do otherwise is irrelevant to our judgments of responsibility and free will. It rather is our ability to act for reasons that is crucial. We argue that this view is most (...) significantly challenged by the recent discoveries. Those discoveries show that it is not as obvious and uncontroversial that we act for reasons as it seems. Hence, we have to rethink our concept of reasons-responsiveness. (shrink)

Basic Desert, Reactive Attitudes and Free Will addresses the issue of whether we can make sense of the widespread conviction that we are morally responsible beings. It focuses on the claim that we deserve to be blamed and punished for our immoral actions, and how this claim can be justified given the philosophical and scientific reasons to believe that we lack the sort of free will required for this sort of desert. Contributions to the book distinguish between, and explore, two (...) clusters of questions. The first asks what it is to deserve to be harmed or benefitted. What are the bases for desert – actions, good character, bad character, the omission of good character traits? The second cluster explores the disagreement between compatabilists and incompatibilists surrounding the nature of desert. Do we deserve to be harmed, benefitted, or judged, even if we lack the ability to act differently, and if we do not, what effect does this have on our everyday actions? Taken in full, this book sheds light on the notion of desert implicated in our practice of holding each other morally responsible. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Philosophical Explorations. _. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that we can have defensible attributions of responsibility without first answering the question whether determinism and free will are compatible. The key to such a defense is a focus on the fact that most actions for which we hold one another responsible are quite ordinary—trespassing traffic regulations, tardiness, or breaking a promise. As we will show, unlike actions that problematize our moral competence — e.g. akratic and ‘moral monster’- like ones—ordinary ‘wrong’ actions often disclose (...) this competence. Hence, no counterfactual assumption is needed to establish that some of us are sometimes responsible for some of the actions we perform. (shrink)

Suppose that there is no real distinction between 'mad' and 'bad' because every truly bad-acting agent, proves to be a morally incompetent one. If this is the case: should we not change our ordinary interpersonal relationships in which we blame people for the things they do? After all, if people literally always act to 'the best of their abilities' nobody is ever to blame for the wrong they commit, whether these wrong actions are 'horrible monster'-like crimes or trivial ones, such (...) as cycling on a footpath. This paper offers a skeptical solution, i.e., a solution that does not depend upon the existence of individual responsibility for extreme wrongdoing. I conclude that even in the 'worst case' that skepticism about the distinction between mad and bad is warranted, we are nevertheless justified to treat one another; in general, as morally competent agents who are often to blame for the wrong they commit. (shrink)

What role do celebrities play in our moral lives? Philosophers have explored the potential for celebrities to function as moral exemplars and role models. We argue that there are more ways in which celebrities play a role in helping us navigate our moral lives. First, gossiping about celebrities helps us negotiate our moral norms and identify competing styles of life. Second, fandom for celebrities serves as the basis for the development of distinct moral communities and identities. Third, celebrities possess high (...) levels of epistemic power which can be used to help change and adapt our moral norms. We will then investigate two kinds of problems that arise from using celebrities in this way. Firstly, harm is done to celebrities because they are used in the ways explained in the first part of the article; secondly, celebrity life has a distinctive nature that can affect the moral agency of celebrities. Fame, we suggest, might lead to a morally unhealthy asymmetry in human relationships. We end by discussing the ethical implications of our analysis and conclude that when using stars for moral navigation, we should take into account the harm this does to them and the distinctive nature of their lives. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

In 1969 Prof. Frankfurt has introduced a famous class of counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. The principle that states that a person x is only responsible for an action y, if she could have done otherwise than y. In these examples a so called ‘counterfactual intervener’ figures that pre-empts all alternate possibilities counterfactually, that is, without actually intervening. Because this counterfactual intervener only looms passively in the background, x’s moral responsibility for y is not affected, whereas at the (...) same time — by stipulation — x couldn’t have done otherwise than y. Hence, the Principle of Alternate Possibilities must be false. (shrink)

Is de vrije wil een noodzakelijke voorwaarde voor morele verantwoordelijkheid? Dit stuk gaat over enkele van de argumenten die voor een ontkennend of bevestigend antwoord op die vraag pleiten.

The idea that human beings experience their lives as some sort of story and tend to understand themselves as authors of a narrative has become increasingly popular in philosophy. Some philosophers suggest that narratives are indispensable when it comes to answering the traditional question associated with personal (numerical) identity: what makes it the case that the person considered at time t0 is the same person as the person considered at time t1? They claim that taking a narrative approach to this (...) question allows for avoiding some of the problems that arise when attempting to answer it in terms of biological or psychological continuity. Other philosophers point out that narratives primarily have a unifying role with respect to our actions, experiences, beliefs, desires, and character traits. They take narratives to answer what Marya Schechtman (1996) calls “the characterization” question, in that narratives structure our self-experience and characterize us as unique individuals. .. (shrink)

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility is an edited collection of new essays by an internationally recognized line-up of contributors. It is aimed at readers who wish to explore the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications.

Social stimuli grab our attention: we attend to them in an automatic and bottom-up manner, and ascribe them a higher degree of saliency compared to non-social stimuli. However, it has rarely been investigated how variations in attention affect the processing of social stimuli, although the answer could help us uncover details of social cognition processes such as action understanding. In the present study, we examined how changes to bottom-up attention affects neural EEG-responses associated with intentional action processing. We induced an (...) increase in bottom-up attention by using hypnosis. We recorded the electroencephalographic µ-wave suppression of hypnotized participants when presented with intentional actions in first and third person perspective in a video-clip paradigm. Previous studies have shown that the µ-rhythm is selectively suppressed both when executing and observing goal-directed motor actions; hence it can be used as a neural signal for intentional action processing. Our results show that neutral hypnotic trance increases µ-suppression in highly suggestible participants when they observe intentional actions. This suggests that social action processing is enhanced when bottom-up attentional processes are predominant. Our findings support the Social Relevance Hypothesis, according to which social action processing is a bottom-up driven attentional process, and can thus be altered as a function of bottom-up processing devoted to a social stimulus. (shrink)

Design research programs attempt to bring together the properties of available materials and the demands derived from intended applications. The logic of problem states and state transitions in such programs, including assessment criteria and heuristic principles, is described in settheoretic terms, starting with a naive model comprising an intended profile and the operational profile of a prototype. In a first concretization the useful distinction between structural and functional properties is built into the model. In two further concretizations the inclusion of (...) potential applications is motivated and described for the case of drug research as well as the inclusion of potential realizations for the case of complex products. Next, another line of concretization of the naive model, the incorporation of potentially relevant properties, is sketched. Then the partial analogy between product- and truth-approximation is indicated. We conclude with some remarks about the usefulness of our models for products reaching the market in comparison to the the so-called social construction of technology approach. (shrink)

Opracowanie ma charakter poglądowo-teoretyczny, powstało bowiem na podstawie przeglądu dostępnej literatury przedmiotu. Publikacja skierowana jest zarówno do naukowców jak i studentów zajmujących się tematyką starzenia się ludności, starości i osób starszych oraz do coraz szerszego grona zainteresowanych tymi zagadnieniami praktyków, w tym polityków i decydentów oraz reprezentantów usług publicznych, przedstawicieli mediów i organizacji pozarządowych. ** The study is illustrative and theoretical in nature, as it was based on a review of the available literature on the subject. The publication is addressed (...) to both scholars and students dealing with the subjects of population ageing, old age, and older adults, as well as to a growing group of practitioners interested in these issues, including politicians and decision-makers as well as representatives of public services, the media, and non-governmental organizations. (shrink)