Artificial intelligence (AI) is embedded in a wide variety of Smart City applications and infrastructures, often without the citizens being aware of the nature of their “intelligence”. AI can affect citizens’ lives concretely, and thus, there may be uncertainty, concerns, or even fears related to AI. To build acceptable futures of Smart Cities with AI-enabled functionalities, the Human-Centered AI (HCAI) approach offers a relevant framework for understanding citizen perceptions. However, only a few studies have focused on clarifying the citizen perceptions (...) of AI in the context of smart city research. To address this gap, we conducted a two-phased study. In the pre-study, we explored citizen perceptions and experiences of AI with a short survey (N = 91). Second, scenario-based interviews (N = 7) were utilized to gain in-depth insights of citizen perceptions of AI in the Smart City context. Five central themes were recognized: (1) I don’t like them monitoring me, (2) I want maximum gain for minimum effort, (3) I don’t want AI to mimic people, (4) I’ll avoid using AI if I consider the risk too high, and (5) I don’t need to be concerned about AI. These offer an idea of human-centered requirements worth considering while designing AI applications for future Smart Cities. (shrink)

In the popular and academic literature on the problems of the so-called attention economy, the cost of attention grabbing, sustaining, and immersing digital medias has been addressed as if it touched all people equally. In this paper I ask whether everyone has the same resources to respond to the recent changes in their stimulus environments caused by the attention economy. I argue that there are not only differences but disparities between people in their responses to the recent, significant increase in (...) the degree and persuasiveness of digital distraction. I point toward individual variance in an agent’s top-down and bottom-up attention regulation, and to further inequality-exacerbating variance in active participation on the internet and in regulating reward-seeking behaviors on the internet. Individual differences in these areas amount to disparities because they have been found to be connected to socioeconomic background factors. I argue that disparities in responding to digital distraction threaten fair equality of opportunity when it comes to digital distraction in the classroom and that they may lead to an unequal contribution of achievements that require complex cognition by people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. (shrink)

In 2017, the Finnish Immigration Service received approximately 1,000 asylum applications and appeals based on conversion from Islam to Christianity. The applications claimed that converted asylum seekers would face mortal danger if returned to their countries of origin. The applications posed an unprecedented dilemma for the Finnish Immigration Service: how was it, as a secular state institution, to evaluate these claims of conversion? This question also became an object of significant public and media debate. In this article, I examine how (...) journalists writing for a religious media publication, Kirkko ja kaupunki, the newspaper of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Helsinki region, sought to intervene in the debate on asylum seekers’ conversions. I focus my analysis on one central line of argument in their reporting: a call for the better- inclusion of and engagement with religious expertise on Christianity by the Finnish Immigration Service when evaluating conversion-based asylum applications and appeals. I show that this call both positioned religious expertise as an antidote to the challenges that efforts to evaluate conversion-based asylum appeals posed to Finnish Immigration Service employees in this time period, and constituted expertise as a site for negotiations over the ‘proper’ relationship between religion and state. (shrink)

Man and earth : on the geography of Eric Dardel.

It has been debated whether the so-called attention economy, in which the attention of agents is measured and sold, jeopardizes something of value. One strand of this discussion has focused on so-called attention rights, asking: should attention be legally protected, either by introducing novel rights or by extending the scope of pre-existing rights? In this paper, however, in order to further this discussion, we ask: How is attention already protected legally? In what situations does a person have the right to (...) attention under current law? -/- Unlike (Chomanski, Neuroethics 16:1–11, 2023), who discusses an overall right to attention, or (Puri, Rutgers Law Record 48:206–221, 2021), who discusses an overall right to attentional privacy, in this paper we focus on two types of situations in which a person’s attention is already protected by legal regulation. Sustained attention-requiring tasks can be jeopardized by distractions whereas attentiveness to certain kind of stimuli can be jeopardized by immersive stimuli. That is why distractions are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a concentration right and immersive stimuli are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a duty to be attentive. The further analysis of these situations provides an understanding of the legal means by which attention is already regulated, which can be helpful when thinking about how it should be regulated in the future. (shrink)

In bioethics vaccine refusal is often discussed as an instance of free riding on the herd immunity of an infectious disease. However, the social science of vaccine refusal suggests that the reasoning behind refusal to vaccinate more often stems from previous negative experiences in healthcare practice as well as deeply felt distrust of healthcare institutions. Moreover, vaccine refusal often acts like an exit mechanism. Whilst free riding is often met with sanctions, exit, according to Albert Hirschman’s theory of exit and (...) voice is most efficiently met by addressing concerns and increasing the quality and number of feedback channels. If the legitimate grievances responsible for vaccine refusal are not heard or addressed by healthcare policy, further polarization of attitudes to vaccines is likely to ensue. Thus, there is a need in the bioethics of vaccine refusal to understand the diverse ethical questions of this inflammable issue in addition to those of individual responsibility to vaccinate. (shrink)

Review of Anne Heith's Laestadius and Laestadianism in the Contested Field of Cultural Heritage: A Study of Contemporary Sámi and Tornedalian Texts.

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

This paper analyzes the main features of rational choice theory and evaluates it with respect to the conceptions of Lakatos' research program and Laudan's research tradition. The analysis reveals that the thin rationality assumption, the axiomatic method and the reduction to the micro level are the only features shared by all rational choice models. On these grounds, it is argued that rational choice theory cannot be characterized as a research program. This is due to the fact that the thin rationality (...) assumption cannot be understood as a hard core in Lakatos' terms. It is argued that Laudan's conception of a research tradition better characterizes rational choice theory. On the basis of this conclusion, certain important criticisms of rational choice theory are answered. First, the criticisms concerning the core assumptions of rational choice theory are countered. It is argued that this critique is based on a misunderstanding of rational choice theory as a unified set of models, such as Lakatos' research program. Second, Green and Shapiro's rational choice 'pathologies' - inconsistent predictions, post hoc theory development and arbitrary domain restrictions - are evaluated. Contrary to Green and Shapiro, it is argued that post hoc theory development is a more preferable strategy for developing RCT than domain restrictions based on ex ante rules. (shrink)

Vaalijärjestelmä on yksi keskeisimmistä demokraattisen järjestelmän instituutioista, joka vaikuttaa merkittävästi siihen, kuka vaalit voittaa ja kuka häviää. Eerik Lagerspetz analysoi kirjassaan Social Choice and Democratic Values laajasti äänestyssääntöjen vaikutusta demokraattisiin päätöksiin. Lagerspetzin teos on tärkeä monestakin syystä, mutta erityisesti siksi, että se yhdistää harvoin keskenään keskustelevia normatiivisen demokratiateorian ja sosiaalisen valinnan teorian perinteitä. Pohdin artikkelissani äänestysmenettelyjen valintaa. Keskityn siihen, millä säännöillä äänestysmenettely valitaan, en niinkään sitä, ketkä valinnan tekevät. Tarkastelen aluksi sitä, miten äänestyssäännön valinta poikkeaa muista poliittisista valinnoista. Tämän jälkeen (...) pohdin, millä menettelyillä valinta voidaan tehdä ja lopuksi tarkastelen kahta empiiristä tutkimusta siitä, miten äänestysmenettelyjä valitaan. (shrink)

What does it mean to intentionally not perform an action? Is it possible to not perform an action out of resistant intention? Is there sufficient language for talking about this kind of behavior in the social sciences? In this article, a nonnormative vocabulary of not doings including resistant intentional omissions is developed. Unlike concepts that describe official, overt, and public resistance, James Scott’s everyday resistance and Albert Hirschman’s exit have made it possible to talk about the resistant inactions of agents (...) in the social sciences. But in order to grasp the ordinariness of this kind of oppositional behavior, philosophy of intentional omissions is used. (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy maintain that outcomes of democratic deliberation are fairer than outcomes of mere aggregation of preferences. Theorists of impartial justice, especially Rawls and Sen, emphasize the role of deliberative processes for making just decisions. Democratic deliberation seems therefore to provide a model of impartial decision-making applicable in the real world. However, various types of cognitive and affective biases limit individual capacity to see things from others’ perspectives. In this paper, two strategies of enhancing impartiality in real world (...) decision-making are discussed. The first involves decision-making processes which detach decision-makers from their particular interests, whereas the second aims to enhance the quality of democratic deliberation and empathetic reasoning. We conclude that new forms of democratic deliberation may be necessary if we hold on to the aspiration of making decisions which are both democratic and impartial. (shrink)

Accountability is present in many types of social relations; for example, the accountability of elected representatives to voters is the key characteristic of representative democracy. We distinguish between two institutional mechanisms of accountability, i.e., opportunity to punish and requirement of a justification, and examine the separate and combined effects of these mechanisms on individual behavior. For this purpose, we designed a decision-making experiment where subjects engage in a three-player trust game with two senders and one responder. We ask whether holding (...) the responder accountable increases senders’ and responders’ contributions in a trust game. When restricting the analysis to the first round, the requirement of justification seems to have a positive impact on senders’ contributions. When the game is played repeatedly, the experience of previous rounds dominates the results and significant treatment effects are no longer seen. We also find that responders tend to justify their choices in terms of reciprocity, which is in line with observed behavior. Moreover, the treatment combining punishment and justification hinders justifications that appeal to pure self-interest. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

‘Intersectionality’ has taken on a complex position in the field of feminist scholarship over the last decade. Debate on the concept has swung back and forth, from buzzword to harsh critique. Amid these discussions, many feminist scholars have thought about Audre Lorde and the role of her writings in the debates over intersectionality. Lorde’s radical literary feminism has often been seen both as reflecting a politics of identity, on the one hand, and as shifting and situational, on the other. Intersectionality (...) has also been claimed either to be recycling the ideas of identity politics or to be forging new ways to grasp decentered identity positions and power structures. This article aims to tell a story about the roots of intersectionality through – and alongside – the legacy of Lorde’s feminism, by revisiting certain identity-political ideas. The radical nature of Lorde’s thinking is in many ways connected to politicized writing styles and rebellious literary forms. The main focus in this article is therefore extended to cover the role and implications of radical writing styles for intersectionality. The article argues that the oeuvre of telling the story of intersectionality through Lorde’s feminism opens up a new perspective on the genealogy of intersectionality. (shrink)

We investigated the longitudinal links between parental teaching of reading and spelling and children’s word reading and spelling skills. Data of 244 Lithuanian parent–child dyads were analyzed, who were followed across three time points: end of kindergarten (T1;Mage= 6.88; 116 girls), beginning of Grade 1 (T2), and end of Grade 1 (T3). The children’s word reading and spelling skills were tested, and the parents answered questionnaires on the frequency with which they taught their children reading and spelling. Overall, the results (...) showed that the parents were responsive to their children’s skill levels across the domains of reading and spelling and across time (i.e., the transition from kindergarten to Grade 1 and across Grade 1). However, differences between the domains of reading and spelling were also observed. In particular, in the domain of reading and across the transition from kindergarten to Grade 1, the parents responded to their children’s skill levels by increasing the time spent teaching children with poor word reading skills, and decreasing the teaching time for the children with good word reading skills. In contrast, as spelling skills may require more time to develop, parents maintained similar frequencies of teaching spelling across the transition to Grade 1 for all children, and only parents of good spellers taught less spelling at the end of Grade 1 than parents of children with poor and average word spelling skills. (shrink)

In this article I examine the architecture and architectural thinking of Finnish Academician Reima Pietilä in relation to his design methodology. Pietilä was an architect with an original, creative, artistic personality, who set out early in his career to develop the form language, and theory of modern architecture, moving it towards an organic expressionism. Finnish nature mysticism was a source of inspiration for him, and ‘nature architecture’ one of his key concepts.

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

Tarkoitukselliset tekemättä jättämiset ovat osa toimijuutta siinä missä tarkoitukselliset teotkin. Tarkoitukselliset tekemättä jättämiset ovat kuitenkin piileviä toimijuuden ilmentymiä siinä mielessä, että on vaikea ulkopuolisen tarkkailijan näkökulmasta sanoa, jättääkö joku jotakin tekemättä tarkoituksella vai vahingossa. Teon filosofista lähestymistapaa tarvitaan siksi sen selvittämiseen, mitä tapahtuu, kun ihminen tarkoituksella jättää teon tekemättä. -/- Filosofinen työ pystyy erottelemaan tekemättä jättämisiä toisistaan, etsimään niiden välttämättömiä ja riittäviä ehtoja ja sijoittamaan ne osaksi toimijuutemme kokonaisuutta. Käsitteellinen työ auttaa tekemään piilevistä ilmiöistä todellisia antamalla niille nimen. Ontologinen työ (...) asettaa ilmiön osaksi todellisuuden perusrakennetta. Naturalistinen tutkimusote teon filosofiassa löytää vastaavuuksia kognitiivisen psykologian ja teon filosofian kategorioiden välille. Monimenetelmäinen tutkimusote on hyödyllinen silloin kun jokin ilmiö on jäänyt vähälle huomiolle. Koherentin filosofisen työn puutteessa tarkoitukselliset tekemättä jättämiset ovatkin olleet alttiita yksinkertaistavilla myyteillä ja sanonnoilla selittämiseen. -/- Kokonaisvaltainen toimijuuden filosofia pyrkii selvittämään, mistä toimijuudessa on kyse ottamalla huomioon myös sen piilevät ilmentymät. Tällainen toimijuuden teoria soveltuu paremmin myös yhteiskuntatieteiden käyttöön. Sillä miten ymmärrämme ja pystymme käsitteellistämään tarkoituksellisia tekemättä jättämisiä, on väliä esimerkiksi siksi, että ihmisen toimintaa koskevia teorioita käytetään yhteiskuntatieteissä. Yhteiskuntatieteitä taas käytetään informoimaan poliittista päätöksentekoa. Sillä miten teoria tavoittaa piilevää toimijuutta on siis merkitystä, kun vaikkapa pyritään puuttumaan osallistumattomuuteen tai äänestämättömyyteen. (shrink)

Since 1900, debates about the justification of punishment have also been debates about the cause of crime. In the early twentieth century, the rehabilitative ideal of punishment viewed mental illness and dysfunction in individuals as the cause of crime. Starting in the 1970s, retributivism identified the immorality of human agents as the source of crime, which dovetailed well with the “tough-on-crime” political milieu of the 1980s and 1990s that produced mass incarceration. After surveying these historical trends, Wirts argues for a (...) social critical view that crime is best understood as a product of an unjust society, not faulty human beings. This view should take the lessons learned by the critiques of rehabilitation, however, and resist the tendency to reduce human beings to recipients of social services. (shrink)

Background Shared responsibility is an essential part of family-centred care and it characterizes the relationship between parents and healthcare professionals. Despite this, little is known about their shared responsibility for decision-making in neonatal intensive care units. Aim The aim of this scoping review was to identify previous studies on the subject and to summarize the knowledge that has been published so far. Method The review was conducted using electronic searches in the CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus and PsycINFO databases and manual searches (...) of the reference lists of the selected papers. The searches were limited to peer-reviewed papers that had been published in English from 2010 to September 2021. The data were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and the findings were inductively summarized. We identified eight papers that met the inclusion criteria. Ethical considerations: The scoping review was conducted according to good scientific practice by respecting authorship and reporting the study processes accurately, honestly and transparently. Results The results showed that shared responsibility for decision-making was based on the parents’ intentions, but the degree to which they were willing to take responsibility varied. The facilitating and inhibiting factors for shared responsibility for decision-making were related to the communication between parents and professionals. The impact was related to the parents’ emotions. Conclusion It is essential that parents and professionals negotiate how both parties will contribute to their shared responsibility for decision-making. This will enable them to reach a mutual understanding of what is in the infants’ best interests and to mitigate the emotional burden of decisions in neonatal intensive care units. More research is needed to clarify the concept of shared responsibility for decision-making in this intensive care context. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has made enormous contributions to the philosophy of action, epistemology, semantics and philosophy of mind and today is recognized as one of the most important analytical philosophers of the late twentieth century. _Donald Davidson: Truth, Meaning and Knowledge_ addresses * Davidson's writings on epistemology and theory of language with their implications of ontology and philosophy of mind * the central issue of whether truth is the ultimate goal of enquiry, challenged by contributions from Richard Rorty and Paul Horwich (...) * Davidson's approach to semantics and applied linguistics as addressed by Kirk Ludwig, Gabriel Segal, Peter Pagin, Stephen Neale, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore and Reinaldo Elugardo * Davidson's advances in the philosophy of mind in relation to the views of Williard V. Quine, John McDowell and Peter F. Strawson, in essays by Roger Gibson and Anita Avramides. (shrink)