In this paper I pursue a possibility that some versions of arguments addressed against the libertarian notion of self-ownership have some definitive implications regarding the equalisandum debate carried out by egalitarians. I have in mind specifically the kind of approach that challenges self-ownership as a morally fundamental value through some inventive counterexamples. So, while I shall argue that the negative arguments against self-ownership are conclusive, my primary attempt is to demonstrate that such arguments can be employed to say something interesting (...) about the equalisandum debate itself; namely, that resources cannot function as the desirable equalisandum, and that there are some reasons for preferring capabilities over welfare as the desired currency for egalitarianism. (shrink)

In this paper I pursue a possibility that some versions of arguments addressed against the libertarian notion of self-ownership have some definitive implications regarding the equalisandum debate carried out by egalitarians. I have in mind specifically the kind of approach that challenges self-ownership as a morally fundamental value through some inventive counterexamples. So, while I shall argue that the negative arguments against self-ownership are conclusive, my primary attempt is to demonstrate that such arguments can be employed to say something interesting (...) about the equalisandum debate itself; namely, that resources cannot function as the desirable equalisandum, and that there are some reasons for preferring capabilities over welfare as the desired currency for egalitarianism. (shrink)

Underestimation of reliability is discussed from the viewpoint of deflation in estimates of reliability caused by artificial systematic technical or mechanical error in the estimates of correlation. Most traditional estimators of reliability embed product–moment correlation coefficient in the form of item–score correlation or principal component or factor loading. PMC is known to be severely affected by several sources of deflation such as the difficulty level of the item and discrepancy of the scales of the variables of interest and, hence, the (...) estimates by Rit and λi are always deflated in the settings related to estimating reliability. As a short-cut to deflation-corrected estimators of reliability, this article suggests a procedure where Rit and λi in the estimators of reliability are replaced by alternative estimators of correlation that are less deflated. These estimators are called deflation-corrected estimators of reliability. Several families of DCERs are proposed and their behavior is studied by using polychoric correlation coefficient, Goodman–Kruskal gamma, and Somers delta as examples of MEC-corrected coefficients of correlation. (shrink)

The ageing populations of the Western world present a wide range of economic, social, and cultural implications, and given the challenges posed by deteriorating maintenance ratios, the scenario is somewhat worrying. In this paper, I investigate whether Martha C. Nussbaum's capabilities approach could secure dignity for older people in long‐term care, despite the per capita decreases in resources. My key research question asks, ‘What implications does Nussbaum's list of central human capabilities have for practical social care?’ My methodology combines Nussbaum's (...) list with ethnographic data gathered from a Finnish sheltered home for older people. On the basis of this study, it seems that the capabilities approach is a plausible framework for the ethics of care because it highlights differences in the ability to function and thus differences in opportunities to pursue a good life. The ideas presented in this article could assist social policy planners and executives in creating policies and practices that help old people to maintain their dignity until the end of their days. (shrink)

This article argues that what Grice termed ‘particularized conversational implicatures’ can be divided into two types. In some cases, it is possible to reconstruct the inference from the explicit content of the utterance to the implicature without employing a premise to the effect that that the speaker expressed that content (by means of an utterance). I call these ‘material implicatures’. Those whose reconstruction relies on a premise about the speaker's verbal behaviour, by contrast, I call ‘behavioural implicatures’. After showing that (...) the division is theoretically significant, I ask whether current pragmatic theory is able to accommodate it. I conclude that, while (neo)-Gricean pragmatics cannot do so straightforwardly, the distinction is already implicit in Relevance Theory. The article ends by considering the question of whether, in the light of previous discussion, speaker meaning really is always an instance of non-natural meaning. (shrink)

There are three conditions which an item has to fulfill in order to be listed into an inventory. Based on those three conditions, the logically basic entities are introduced: they are points, sets, and collections. These logically basic entities are related with three different logical relations, i.e., “is an element of”, “is a subset of”, and “is a part of” –relations, to constitute concepts. Those three logical relations have different relational properties, and thus they are to be distinguished. The logically (...) basic entities are said to exist whereas the concepts constituted by them are said to subsist. One of the most important results is that we should not mix two inventories together, since otherwise inconsistencies follow. (shrink)

Avicenna’s logical theory of negative judgement can be seen as a systematic development of the insights Aristotle had laid out in the De interpretatione. However, in order to grasp the full extent of his theory one must extend the examination from the logical works to the metaphysical and psychological bases of negative judgement. Avicenna himself often refrains from the explicit treatment of the connections between logic and metaphysics or psychology, or treats them in a rather oblique fashion. Time and again (...) he is satisfied with noting that this or that question is not proper for a logician and should be dealt with in metaphysics or psychology—without bothering to refer his reader to the exact loci. The following is an attempt at a reconstruction of Avicenna’s theory of negative judgement in such a broad fashion. I will begin with his analysis of negative judgement as resulting from an operation of ‘removing’ the predicate term from the subject term. On this basis, I will move on to discuss how he conceives of the relation between negative judgements and affirmative judgements that contain privative or metathetic terms as well as the question of whether negative judgements can be reduced to affirmative ones. Having thus laid out his logical theory of negation, I move on to discuss the underlying metaphysics by looking at the relation between existence and non-existence, and existence and privation. Finally, I will address Avicenna’s scattered psychological remarks on how we can conceive of what does not exist. (shrink)

Let A and B be subsets of the set of natural numbers. The well-known strong reducibilities are dened as follows: A m B i 2 B)) A 1 B i A m B and the reduction function f is one-one. where T ot denotes the set of total recursive functions. These reducibilities induce an equivalence relation of interreducibility, the equivalence classes of which are commonly called the m-degrees and the 1-degrees, respectively. The ordering of these degrees has been extensively studied. (...) In this paper the renements of the ordering of the m-degrees are studied by posing complexity conditions on the reduction func- tion. The discussion uses the axiomatic complexity theory and is hence very general. The paper is self-contained in the sense that the basic framework of the axiomatic complexity theory is brie y presented. (shrink)

Avicenna’s discussion of future contingent propositions is sometimes considered to entail metaphysical indeterminism. In this paper, I argue that his logical analysis of future contingent statements is best understood in terms of the epistemic modality of those statements, which has no consequences for modal metaphysics. This interpretation is corroborated by hitherto neglected material concerning the question of God’s knowledge of particulars. In the Taʿlīqāt, Avicenna argues that God knows particulars by knowing their complete causes, and when contrasted with the human (...) knowledge of particulars, this epistemically superior access shows that the contingency of statements about future particulars is not due to the modal properties of real particulars but to the nature of human access to them. (shrink)

This is a critical comment on Adamson and Benevich, published in issue 4/2 of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. I raise two closely related objections. The first concerns the objective of the flying man: instead of the question of what the soul is, I argue that the argument is designed to answer the question of whether the soul exists independently of the body. The second objection concerns the expected result of the argument: instead of knowledge about the quiddity (...) of soul, I claim the argument yields knowledge about the soul's existence independently of the body. After the objections, I turn to the masked man fallacy, claiming that although the Adamson-Benevich interpretation does save the argument from the fallacy, this comes at the cost of plausibility. I then give a more modest interpretation that both avoids the fallacy and is plausible. The paper concludes with a remark about the metaphysical possibility of the flying man. (shrink)

The realities of human agency and decision making pose serious challenges for research ethics. This article explores six major challenges that require more attention in the ethics education of students and scientists and in the research on ethical conduct in science. The first of them is the routinization of action, which makes the detection of ethical issues difficult. The social governance of action creates ethical problems related to power. The heuristic nature of human decision making implies the risk of ethical (...) bias. The moral disengagement mechanisms represent a human tendency to evade personal responsibility. The greatest challenge of all might be the situational variation in people’s ethical behaviour. Even minor situational factors have a surprisingly strong influence on our actions. Furthermore, finally, the nature of ethics itself also causes problems: instead of clear answers, we receive a multitude of theories and intuitions that may sometimes be contradictory. All these features of action and ethics represent significant risks for ethical conduct in science. I claim that they have to be managed within the everyday practices of science and addressed explicitly in research ethics education. I analyse them and suggest some ways in which their risks can be alleviated. (shrink)

This paper deals with the concept of practical wisdom and its applications in the field of jurisprudence. The starting point is the Aristotelian idea that a skill to understand and apply law is an embodiment of practical sense. racticality of law has many dimensions. One important dimension is contextuality. Contextuality appears as the situation dependence of interpretation. Hence, the ultimate content of law is context dependent, too. I try to elucidate the essence of practicality of law and its interpretation by (...) examining a precedent of the Finnish Supreme Court (KKO 1997: 87). It is a case involving the distribution of an estate among heirs. The main idea of that decision is that the proper values of inheritance‐shares depend on the utilization values of them and the whole economic situation among heirs. What is just depends on a situation. Taken seriously, the practicality and contextuality of law forces us to adopt an unconventional conception of jurisprudence. First, it is doubtful if one can point to any scientific method at all. Second, according to this conception, legal dogmatics is not a description of law. Rather, it is a skill of argumentation, the skill of taking considered steps from different kinds of arguments to conclusions. The purpose of legal dogmatics is to offer valid and useful arguments to be used in different situations. (shrink)

This paper engages critically with Dimitri Gutas’ recent characterization of post-classical Islamic philosophy and theology as a form of paraphilosophy or intellectual activity that merely simulates philosophy. I argue that this view arises from a misguided understanding of the concept of philosophy that should provide the standard for its historiography. In order to avoid a number of problematic consequences, such as gaps in historical continuity or a disconnection from what we understand by philosophy today, we must take our cue from (...) a sufficiently uncontroversial contemporary concept of philosophy instead of any particular historical concept, such as the Peripatetic amalgam of metaphysics, theory of science, and the empirical sciences. Such a strategy provides a sound basis for the inclusion of post-classical thinkers, as well as many classical thinkers who are not falāsifa, in the history of Islamic philosophy without vicious circularity or loss of a normative concept of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper engages critically with Dimitri Gutas’ recent characterization of post-classical Islamic philosophy and theology as a form of paraphilosophy or intellectual activity that merely simulates philosophy. I argue that this view arises from a misguided understanding of the concept of philosophy that should provide the standard for its historiography. In order to avoid a number of problematic consequences, such as gaps in historical continuity or a disconnection from what we understand by philosophy today, we must take our cue from (...) a sufficiently uncontroversial contemporary concept of philosophy instead of any particular historical concept, such as the Peripatetic amalgam of metaphysics, theory of science, and the empirical sciences. Such a strategy provides a sound basis for the inclusion of post-classical thinkers, as well as many classical thinkers who are not falāsifa, in the history of Islamic philosophy without vicious circularity or loss of a normative concept of philosophy. (shrink)

Since the introduction of Ethereum in 2015, blockchain technology (BT) has been evolving, and BT has been associated with the concept of the sharing economy by business academics. Despite the marketing research on the sharing economy that has been extensively conducted in the last decade, the linkage between BT and ethical marketing in the sharing economy remains unclear. Through a systematic literature review of 163 articles and a co-citation analysis, this study identifies the key elements of blockchain capabilities, blockchain attributes, (...) and the underlying economic theories of blockchain. It also synthesizes and proposes a shift of ethical marketing logic in the blockchain-based sharing economy that delineates the principles of stakeholder capitalism. The article concludes with a list of future research directions that underline three approaches of stakeholder theory (i.e., the descriptive, instrument, and normative approaches). These directions aim to guide marketing scholars concerning how BT enables an institutionally embedded view of ethical marketing activities and practices that enhance collaborative marketing and subsequently innovate value chains and create sustainable business models in the sharing economy, as well as to the metaverse. (shrink)

Avicenna's physics has been the object of relatively scant scholarly attention in comparison to his psychology and metaphysics. This is deplorable, for as Jon McGinnis points out in the introduction to the present volume, Avicenna's physical investigations both illuminate and deal in detail with a number of topics of crucial importance for both psychology and metaphysics. Furthermore, the scholarly consensus on Avicenna's originality and singular importance for the subsequent Arabic and Latin traditions in the two disciplines is equally true in (...) the field of physics. The Physics of the Healing, Avicenna's major work, shows its author in full control of the late ancient commentary tradition and earlier discussion in .. (shrink)

It has been suggested that damage to anterior regions of the left hemisphere results in a dissociation in the perception and lexical activation of past-tense forms. Specifically, in a lexical-decision task in which past-tense primes immediately precede present-tense targets, such patients demonstrate significant priming for irregular verbs (spoke–speak), but, unlike control participants, fail to do so for regular verbs (looked–look). Here, this behavioral dissociation was first confirmed in a group of eleven patients with damage to the pars opercularis (BA 44) (...) and pars triangularis (BA 45) of the left inferior frontal gyrus (i.e., Broca's area). Two conditions containing word-onset orthographic–phonological overlap (bead–bee, barge–bar) demonstrated that the disrupted regular-verb priming was accompanied by, and covaried with, disrupted ortho-phonological priming, regardless of whether prime stimuli contained the regular inflectional rhyme pattern. Further, the dissociation between impaired regular-verb and preserved irregular-verb priming was shown to be continuous rather than categorical; priming for weak-irregular verbs (spent–spend) was intermediate in size between that of regular verbs and strong verbs. Such continuous dissociations grounded in ortho-phonological relationships between present- and past-tense forms are predicted by single-system, connectionist approaches to inflectional morphology and not predicted by current dual-system, rule-based models. Event-related potential data demonstrated that N400 priming effects were intact for both regular and irregular verbs, suggesting that the absence of significant regular-verb priming in the response time data did not result from a disruption of lexical access, and may have stemmed instead from post-lexical events such as covert articulation, segmentation strategies, and/or cognitive control. (shrink)

Previous research shows that simultaneously executed grasp and vocalization responses are faster when the precision grip is performed with the vowel [i] and the power grip is performed with the vowel [ɑ]. Research also shows that observing an object that is graspable with a precision or power grip can activate the grip congruent with the object. Given the connection between vowel articulation and grasping, this study explores whether grasp‐related size of observed objects can influence not only grasp responses but also (...) vowel pronunciation. The participants had to categorize small and large objects into natural and manufactured categories by pronouncing the vowel [i] or [ɑ]. As predicted, [i] was produced faster when the object's grasp‐related size was congruent with the precision grip while [ɑ] was produced faster when the size was congruent with the power grip (Experiment 1). The effect was not, however, observed when the participants were presented with large objects that are not typically grasped by the power grip (Experiment 2). This study demonstrates that vowel production is systematically influenced by grasp‐related size of a viewed object, supporting the account that sensory‐motor processes related to grasp planning and representing grasp‐related properties of viewed objects interact with articulation processes. The paper discusses these findings in the context of size–sound symbolism, suggesting that mechanisms that transform size‐grasp affordances into corresponding grasp‐ and articulation‐related motor programs might provide a neural basis for size‐sound phenomena that links small objects with closed‐front vowels and large objects with open‐back vowels. (shrink)

Islamic ethics; Siites; conduct of life.

Supercommentary on Aṇubhāṣya, 13th century Dvaita verse exegesis, by Madhva, on Brahmasūtra, basic work of the Vedanta school in Indic philosophy, by Bādarāyaṇa.

Text with translation of Pramāṇamañjarī, treatise on the fundamentals of Nyaya, Vaiśeṣika school in Hindu philosophy by Sarvadeva; includes Sanskrit commentaries and Hindi explanation.

Study of Pramāṇamañjarī of Sarvadeva, work on the fundamentals of Vaiśeṣika philosophy.

In recent years, many studies have shown that perceiving other individuals’ direct gaze has robust effects on various attentional and cognitive processes. However, considerably less attention has been devoted to investigating the affective effects triggered by eye contact. This article reviews research concerning the effects of others’ gaze direction on observers’ affective responses. The review focuses on studies in which affective reactions have been investigated in well-controlled laboratory experiments, and in which contextual factors possibly influencing perceivers’ affects have been controlled. (...) Two important themes emerged from this review. First, explicit affective evaluations of seeing another’s direct versus averted gaze have resulted in rather inconsistent findings; some studies report more positive subjective feelings to direct compared to averted gaze, whereas others report the opposite pattern. These contradictory findings may be related, for example, to differences between studies in terms of the capability of direct-gaze stimuli to elicit feelings of self-involvement. Second, studies relying on various implicit measures have reported more consistent results; they indicate that direct gaze increases affective arousal, and more importantly, that eye contact automatically evokes a positively valenced affective reaction. Based on the review, possible psychological mechanisms for the positive affective reactions elicited by eye contact are described. (shrink)

There is an urge to introduce high technology and robotics in care settings. Assisted living is the fastest growing form of older adults’ long-term care. Resident autonomy has become the watchword for good care. This article sheds light on the potential effects of care robotics on the sense of autonomy of older people in AL. Three aspects of the residents’ sense of autonomy are of particular interest: interaction-based sense of autonomy, coping-based sense of autonomy, and potential-based sense of autonomy. Ethnographical (...) data on resident autonomy in an AL facility and existing literature on care robots are utilized in studying what kind of assurances different types of robots would provide to maintain the sense of autonomy in AL. Robots could strengthen the different types of sense of autonomy in multiple ways. Different types of robots could widen the residents’ space of daily movements, sustain their capacities, and help them maintain and even create future expectations. Robots may strengthen the sense of autonomy of older persons in AL; however, they may simultaneously pose a threat. Multi-professional discussions are needed on whether robots are welcomed in care, and if they are, how, for whom, and in what areas. (shrink)

The reliability of a test score is discussed from the viewpoint of underestimation of and, specifically, deflation in estimates or reliability. Many widely used estimators are known to underestimate reliability. Empirical cases have shown that estimates by widely used estimators such as alpha, theta, omega, and rho may be deflated by up to 0.60 units of reliability or even more, with certain types of datasets. The reason for this radical deflation lies in the item–score correlation embedded in the estimators: because (...) the estimates by Rit are deflated when the number of categories in scales are far from each other, as is always the case with item and score, the estimates of reliability are deflated as well. A short-cut method to reach estimates closer to the true magnitude, new types of estimators, and deflation-corrected estimators of reliability, are studied in the article. The empirical section is a study on the characteristics of combinations of DCERs formed by different bases for estimators, different alternative estimators of correlation as the linking factor between item and the score variable, and different conditions. Based on the simulation, an initial typology of the families of DCERs is presented: some estimators are better with binary items and some with polytomous items; some are better with small sample sizes and some with larger ones. (shrink)

Effective teachers use mnemonic tools or mnemonic triggers to improve the students’ retention of the study material. This article discusses mnemonic triggers from a theoretical viewpoint based on Jerome S. Bruner’s writings. Fifty small linguistic–cognitive, constructive-, rhetorical-, and phonological mnemonic triggers are detected. These triggers may be the elements our brain use when “constructing the realities” in a Brunerian sense when ordering, differentiating, comparing, and handling information, stories and experiences in our brain. Many of these are small, hidden linguistic elements (...) in speech. This article discusses their usage in the educational talk and textbooks. (shrink)

People’s causal judgments are susceptible to the action effect, whereby they judge actions to be more causal than inactions. We offer a new explanation for this effect, the counterfactual explanation: people judge actions to be more causal than inactions because they are more inclined to consider the counterfactual alternatives to actions than to consider counterfactual alternatives to inactions. Experiment 1a conceptually replicates the original action effect for causal judgments. Experiment 1b confirms a novel prediction of the new explanation, the reverse (...) action effect, in which people judge inactions to be more causal than actions in overdetermination cases. Experiment 2 directly compares the two effects in joint-causation and overdetermination scenarios and conceptually replicates them with new scenarios. Taken together, these studies provide support for the new counterfactual explanation for the action effect in causal judgment. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the study of explicit performative utterances in the following ways. First, it presents arguments that support Austin’s view that these utterances are not assertions. In doing so, it offers an original explanation of why they cannot be true or false. Second, it puts forward a new analysis of explicit performatives as cases of showing performing, rather than of instances of asserting or declaring that one is performing a particular act. Finally, it develops a new account of (...) the role of the performative prefix in signalling performative intentions that shows how the prefix can play a special role in the interpretation of performatives utterances. (shrink)

This important book investigates the emergence and development of a distinct concept of self-awareness in post-classical, pre-modern Islamic philosophy. Jari Kaukua presents the first extended analysis of Avicenna's arguments on self-awareness - including the flying man, the argument from the unity of experience, the argument against reflection models of self-awareness and the argument from personal identity - arguing that all these arguments hinge on a clearly definable concept of self-awareness as pure first-personality. He substantiates his interpretation with an analysis (...) of Suhrawardī's use of Avicenna's concept and Mullā Sadrā's revision of the underlying concept of selfhood. The study explores evidence for a sustained, pre-modern and non-Western discussion of selfhood and self-awareness, challenging the idea that these concepts are distinctly modern, European concerns. The book will be of interest to a range of readers in history of philosophy, history of ideas, Islamic studies and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In their effort to understand some phenomena, mechanisms, or relations between them, scientists observe reality and construct theories and models to explain their observations. The process is interactive: On the one hand, observations lead to formulating certain models and theories. On the other hand, models and theories direct scholars' observations, because they include conceptualizations of reality and also ideas how the observations should be made. Scientists, in fact, behave just like any human being and most of the animals: all create (...) representations and schemata concerning their living environments which then later on help them to behave in adaptive ways (Neisser 1976).Compared to everyday observations that .. (shrink)

In this paper three different solutions to Grelling’s paradox, also called the heterological paradox, are given. Firstly, after given the original formulation of the paradox by Grelling and Nelson in 1908, a solution to this paradox offered by Frank Plumpton Ramsey in 1925 is presented. His solution is based on the different meanings of the word “meaning.” Secondly, Grelling himself advocated the solution proposed by Uuno Saarnio in 1937. Saarnio’s solution is based on the exact definitions of the concept of (...) word, and the concept of denoting. Thirdly, a solution to this paradox was proposed also by Georg Henrik von Wright in 1960, but his solution consists of saying that the word “heterological” does not name a concept—or it names a concept only up to a singular point. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe and reflect ethical challenges in a grounded theory study on the dynamics of hope in HIV-positive adults and their significant others. It concentrates on the justification of a research problem, sensitive research and the relationship between the researcher and the participants in data collection. The basis of ethically sound nursing research on the dynamics of hope in these two vulnerable groups lies in the relationship between the researcher and the participant. However, it (...) is also obvious that the content, the process, the methods used and the ethics of the study cannot be divorced from this relationship. In conducting grounded theory research on the dynamics of hope in this research population, the researcher has to consider the surrounding world, that is, the reality in which these people live in hope or despair. (shrink)

During the colonial contact and especially after the 2nd World War in the Solomon Islands local communities various traditions of woodcarving and other handicrafts have transformed from religious and ritual objects to commercial 'tourist arts' that have become economically important for local communities. In the course of culture change Western concepts such as art and culture have been adopted to local languages and they have replaced local terminologies and classifications in various ways. These processes may be described as 'conceptual colonialism'. (...) The meaning shifts and emerging new conceptual categories produce homogenising effects that transform the local ways of cultural thinking towards the direction of hegemonic Western interpretations of socio-cultural phenomena. The concept of art should be treated as one major element in this linguistic power play between the local and the global. (shrink)

According to theoretical work on epistemic injustice, baseless discrediting of the knowledge of people with marginalized social identities is a central driver of prejudice and discrimination. Discrediting of knowledge may sometimes be subtle, but it is pernicious, inducing chronic stress and coping strategies such as emotional avoidance. In this research, we sought to deepen the understanding of epistemic injustice’s impact by examining emotional responses to being discredited and assessing if marginalized social group membership predicts these responses. We conducted a novel (...) series of three experiments (Total N = 1690) in which participants (1) shared their factual knowledge about how a game worked or their personal feelings about the game; (2) received discrediting feedback (invalidating remarks), validating feedback (affirming remarks), or insulting feedback (general negative social evaluation); and then (3) reported their affect. In all three studies, on average, affective responses to discrediting feedback were less negative than to insulting feedback, and more negative than to validating feedback. Participants who shared their knowledge reported more negative affect after discrediting feedback than participants who shared their feelings. There were consistent individual differences, including a twice-replicated finding of reduced negative affect after receiving discrediting and insulting feedback for Black men compared to White men and women and Black women. Black men’s race-based traumatic symptom scores predicted their affective responses to discrediting and insulting feedback, suggesting that experience with discrimination contributed to the emotional processing of a key aspect of epistemic injustice: remarks conveying baseless discrediting of knowledge. (shrink)

Postmerger integration is a highly challenging and demanding task. Its success depends not only on economic factors but also on the organisational members' feelings and their personal contribution to the new entity. Mergers are usually made for the sake of profitability in the first place, whereas less attention is paid to employees in such situations. This article describes various ethical observations made in our study on corporate mergers in the Nordic Electro-business industry. We examine how the organisational change was experienced (...) by personnel, what kinds of ethical reflections surfaced in different phases of the process, and what conclusions might be drawn from them. The main focus is on the ethical meanings that emerged in our interviewees' stories spontaneously, without the topic of ethics having been separately brought up in the interview situation. The organisational members: we interviewed 35 electro-business employees who were either transferred from Vattenfall's contracting unit to the acquiring company or were already working there at the time of the merger. These persons were interviewed twice: first in 2001, the year of the initial merger, and again in 2005, 4 years from the start of the process and 1 year from the final ownership change. The merger process seemed to lead to decreased responsibility among the organisational members, which highlights the discrepancy between genuine ethical thinking and executive talk. Our study also revealed a dramatic shift in the moral attitudes of the managers who fell from power in the turmoil of organisational change. This moral dimension is evident in their sharply critical argumentation against the new operating model and new corporate management, as well as in their eventual indifference and non-commitment to the organisation. The ethical meanings of 'the good life' and a happy work community slowly disintegrated and were replaced by a longing for the earlier communality and sense of togetherness in their old organisation. This meant that 'the good life' would have to be sought elsewhere. (shrink)

This article analyzes the distribution of benefits from Fair Trade between producing and consuming countries. Fair Trade and conventional coffee production and trade were examined in Nicaragua in 2005-2006 and 2008. Consumption of the respective coffees was assessed in Finland in 2006-2009. The results indicate that consumers paid considerably more for Fair Trade-certified coffee than for the other alternatives available. Although Fair Trade provided price premiums to producer organizations, a larger share of the retail prices remained in the consuming country (...) relative to conventional coffee trade. Paradoxically, along with the certified farmers and cooperatives, Fair Trade empowers roasters and retailers. (shrink)

The ability to attribute false-beliefs to others — the hallmark of a representational theory of mind — has been shown to be reliant on linguistic ability, specifically on competence in sentential complementation after verbs of communication and cognition such as `say that' and `think that'. The reason commonly put forward for this is that these structures provide a representational format which enables the child to think about another's thoughts. The paper offers an alternative explanation. Drawing on the work of the (...) philosophers Michael Dummett and Robert Brandom, it argues that the available data better fits an account that grounds the notion of representation in the commitments undertaken by asserters. The competence in sentential complementation that precedes false-belief attribution is viewed as a result of the child developing a meta-awareness of the syntactic forms employed in assertion. This meta-awareness gives the child access to discourse about the commitments undertaken by speakers and the consequences of these for their behaviour. This understanding constitutes the child's grasp of the representational nature of discourse and thought. The paper thus offers an illocutionary account of theory-of-mind development. (shrink)