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)

Many philosophers think that punishment is intentionally harmful and that this makes it especially hard to morally justify. Explanations for the latter intuition often say questionable things about the moral significance of the intent to harm. I argue that there’s a better way to explain this intuition.

Many philosophers claim that it is always intrinsically good when people get what they deserve and that there is always at least some reason to give people what they deserve. I highlight problems with this view and defend an alternative. I have two aims. First, I want to expose a gap in certain desert-based justifications of punishment. Second, I want to show that those of us who have intuitions at odds with these justifications have an alternative account of desert at (...) our disposal – one that may lend our intuitions more credibility. (shrink)

Robert Hanna presents a fresh view of the Kantian and analytic traditions that have dominated continental European and Anglo-American philosophy over the last two centuries, and of the connections between them. But this is not just a study in the history of philosophy, for out of this emerges Hanna's original approach to two much-contested theories that remain at the heart of contemporary philosophy. Hanna puts forward a new 'cognitive-semantic' interpretation of transcendental idealism, and a vigorous defense of (...) Kant's theory of analytic and synthetic necessary truth, making this compelling reading for all who are interested in these fundamental philosophical issues. (shrink)

An observation of Hume’s has received a lot of attention over the last decade and a half: Although we can standardly imagine the most implausible scenarios, we encounter resistance when imagining propositions at odds with established moral (or perhaps more generally evaluative) convictions. The literature is ripe with ‘solutions’ to this so-called ‘Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance’. Few, however, question the plausibility of the empirical assumption at the heart of the puzzle. In this paper, we explore empirically whether the difficulty we (...) witness in imagining certain propositions is indeed due to claim type (evaluative v. non-evaluative) or whether it is much rather driven by mundane features of content. Our findings suggest that claim type plays but a marginal role, and that there might hence not be much of a ‘puzzle’ to be solved. (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)

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)

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)

My first experience as a clinician was in a Therapeutic Community for service users with personality disorder. As well as having personality disorder, many of the Community members also suffered from related conditions, such as addiction and eating disorders. Broadly speaking, these conditions are what we might call ‘disorders of agency’. Core diagnostic symptoms or maintaining factors of disorders of agency are actions and omissions: patterns of behaviour central to the nature or maintenance of the condition. For instance, borderline personality (...) disorder is diagnosed in part via deliberate self-harm and attempted suicide, reckless and impulsive behaviour, substance use, violence, and outbursts of anger; addiction is diagnosed via maladaptive patterns of drug consumption; eating disorders involve eating too much or too little. If a service user is to improve let alone recover from these disorders, they must change the diagnostic or maintaining pattern of behaviour (cf. Pearce and Pickard, 2010). For instance, service users with borderline personality disorder must stop self-harming; addicts need to quit using drugs or alcohol; anorexics must eat. (shrink)

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)

Variation in addiction suggests that a good definition will be précising: it should serve a purpose. The authors canvass the various purposes served by a definition of addiction in psychiatric, social, legal, economic, interpersonal and scientific contexts. They argue that addiction is a strong and habitual want that significantly reduces control and leads to significant harm. What counts as significant varies relative to purpose and context. The authors offer a basic account of the nature of control and how and why (...) it can be reduced. The chapter explores the nature of harm and why it is part of the definition. And it concludes by suggesting that progress in understanding addiction depends on bearing in mind the various purposes and contexts of enquiry, together with the common-sense but often neglected point that both control and harm come in degrees. (shrink)

I argue that legal punishment is morally wrong because it’s too morally risky. I first briefly explain how my argument differs from similar ones in the philosophical literature on legal punishment. Then I explain why legal punishment is morally risky, argue that it’s too morally risky, and discuss objections. In a nutshell, my argument goes as follows. Legal punishment is wrong because we can never sufficiently reduce the risk of doing wrong when we legally punish people. We can never sufficiently (...) reduce this risk because wrongful punishment is much worse than wrongful non-punishment and because punishment’s permissibility depends on the answers to a variety of difficult philosophical questions about which we’re fallible. (shrink)

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

Man and earth : on the geography of Eric Dardel.

Effective treatment of disorders of agency presents a clinical conundrum. Many of the core symptoms or maintaining factors are actions and omissions that cause harm to self and others. Encouraging service users to take responsibility for this behavior is central to treatment. Blame, in contrast, is detrimental. How is it possible to hold service users responsible for actions and omissions that cause harm without blaming them? A solution to this problem is part conceptual, part practical. This chapter offers a conceptual (...) framework that clearly distinguishes between ideas of responsibility, blameworthiness, and "detached" and "affective" blame. It argues that affective blame is detrimental to effective treatment. And it suggests that affective blame can be avoided by attention to service users' past history, which directly evokes compassion and empathy. Finally, the chapter briefly considers whether the clinical stance of responsibility without blame should be adopted in non-clinical interpersonal and social contexts. (shrink)

This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. The authors deny the existence of a direct referential relationship between words and things. Rather, the link between language and world is a two-stage one, in which meaning is used and in which a natural language should be understood as fundamentally a collection of socially devised and maintained practices. Arguing against the philosophical mainstream descending from Frege and Russell to Quine, Davidson, (...) Dummett, McDowell, Evans, Putnam, Kripke and others, the authors demonstrate that discarding the notion of reference does not entail relativism or semantic nihilism. A provocative re-examination of the interrelations of language and social practice, this book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities. (shrink)

The financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach, consisting of archival (...) data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms. (shrink)

The study aims to lay the groundwork for systematically investigating children’s peer discourse at different age levels with a view to delimiting the role of peer talk for pragmatic development. An interdisciplinary stance to the study of children’s peer talk is argued for, considering it simultaneously as the arena for the co-construction of childhood cultures as well as an arena for development. We propose a four-dimensional model of discursive events, meant to capture both dimensions simultaneously. The model takes into account (...) the dynamic interplay among the type of activity children are engaged in, the overall thematic frame of the event, its internal framing by the children themselves and the genre used. The model is applied to the analysis of natural peer talk at two age levels, preschoolers and fourth graders, focusing mainly on variation along the dimension of keying. The two age groups studied are shown to share a rich repertoire of keyings and genres, but to differ in their relative salience and modes of realization by age. Our analysis suggests that peer talk offers children ample opportunities to listen in, practice and display conversational as well as academic discursive skills, and hence may very well prove a crucial site for pragmatic development. (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)

ABSTRACTDespite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship b...

Our aim was to study how nurses interpret patient autonomy in end-of-life decision making. This study built on our previous quantitative study, which evaluated the experiences of and views on end-of-life decision making of a representative sample of Finnish nurses taken from the whole country. We performed qualitative interviews with 17 nurses and analysed these using discourse analysis. In their talk, the nurses demonstrated three different discourses, namely, the ‘supporter’, the ‘analyst’ and the ‘practical’ discourses, each of which outlined a (...) certain position for patients and relatives, and a certain identity for the nurses in end-of-life decision making. The nurses’ talk showed notable differences when compared with that of physicians, highlighting the differences that take place in respect of the image of a person’s work, professional culture, professional identification and responsibilities. An important finding was that the nurses often described their participation in end-of-life decision making in terms of indirect influence. (shrink)

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)

In a recent New Yorker cartoon, a man is fixing a sink. His partner, standing nearby skeptically asks, “Do you really know what you are doing, or do you only google-​know?” This cartoon perfectly captures the mixed relationship we have with googling, or knowing via digital interface, particularly via search engines. On the one hand, googling is now the dominant source of socially useful knowledge. The use of search engines for this purpose is almost completely integrated into many of our (...) lives. On the other, the point the cartoon is making resonates with nearly all of us: users often recognize that there are risks and trade-​offs associated with gaining certain kinds of information via online search. These facts about googling make it particularly interesting to the applied epistemologist. Our practices involving search engines not only have a distinctive character, that character puts some traditional epistemic questions in a new light. This chapter will examine two of those questions. The first concerns the extent to which googling raises problems similar to familiar quandaries surrounding testimonial knowledge. The second –​and more radical –​concerns whether googling is a type of distributed or extended knowledge. (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)

Contents - Introduction; The Problem of Thomas Hobbes; Formalistic Views of Representation; 'Standing For' - Descriptive Representation; 'Standing For' - Symbolic Representation; Representing as 'Acting For' - The Analogies; The Mandate ...

B a c k g r o u n d. This article reveals the understanding of the concept of nature in the works of the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau is an American philosopher, poet, essayist, naturalist and political activist. Together with Ralph Waldo Emerson, his friend and mentor, he is considered one of the founders of the transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism was a powerful movement of American philosophy of the 19th century. It was characterized by focusing on (...) the problem of human self-knowledge, human's returning to own essence, living in harmony with nature, as well as criticism of modern society and active abolitionism. M e t h o d s. The article uses both general scientific methods and special methods, such as – the method of historical-philosophical reconstruction, which made it possible to reproduce the ideas of the American thinker, the hermeneutic method – for explaining individual positions of the philosopher. In addition, literary-critical methods were used, for the possibility of using various primary sources, and systematic method – to identify a systematized structure in the philosophical work of H. D. Thoreau. R e s u l t s. One of the main features of transcendentalism is a special interest in reflection on nature and a special approach to it. Thus, the concept of nature is present in most of H. D. Thoreau's works, and it is the central topic of his philosophical searches. The concept of nature in his works appears in different contexts, acquires different meanings. Thus, H. D. Thoreau talks about nature in the context of nature, in the context of poetic creativity, in his philosophical searches, in his vision of man and in his argumentation of his own political position. However, the different meanings that H. D. Thoreau attaches to the concept of nature do not contradict each other, but, on the contrary, complement and clarify his understanding of nature. C o n c l u s i o n s. This article proposes to consider the use of the concept of nature by H. D. Thoreau in the following aspects: Nature and Peculiarities of nature as a subject of scientific knowledge. Nature and The relationship between nature and culture through the relationship between "the wild" and society. Nature and From naturalism to humanism. Nature as an inner essence of man and solitude with nature as a return to this essence. (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)

In this paper we explore whether or not the use of risk assessment tools in criminal sentencing can be made compatible with a retributivist justification of punishment. While there has been considerable discussion of the accuracy and fairness of these tools, such discussion assumes that one’s recidivism risk is relevant to the severity of punishment that one should receive. But this assumption only holds on certain accounts of punishment, and seems to conflict with retributivist justifications of punishment. Drawing on the (...) broader desert literature, we explain the source of this conflict, and suggest that a retributivist approach on which the severity of punishment partly depends on one’s character in addition to their acts offers some hope of reconciling retributivism with the use of risk assessment tools in considerations of sentencing reduction in particular. Ultimately, however, even this limited attempt at reconciliation fails, so long as risk assessment tools fail to distinguish between risk that one is responsible for, and risk that one is not responsible for. (shrink)

Drug use and drug addiction are severely stigmatised around the world. Marc Lewis does not frame his learning model of addiction as a choice model out of concern that to do so further encourages stigma and blame. Yet the evidence in support of a choice model is increasingly strong as well as consonant with core elements of his learning model. I offer a responsibility without blame framework that derives from reflection on forms of clinical practice that support change and recovery (...) in patients who cause harm to themselves and others. This framework can be used to interrogate our own attitudes and responses, so that we can better see how to acknowledge the truth about choice and agency in addiction, while avoiding stigma and blame, and instead maintaining care and compassion alongside a commitment to working for social justice and good. (shrink)

This study examined cognitive predictors of susceptibility to orientation illusions: Poggendorff, Ponzo, and Zöllner. It was assumed that lower efficiency of information processing in WM and higher field dependence are conducive to orientation illusions. 61 architects aged M = 29, +/- 1.6, and 49 university students aged M = 23.53, +/- 4.24, were tested with Witkin’s EFT to assess their field dependence; the SWATT method was used as a measure of WM efficiency, and susceptibility to visual illusions was verified with (...) a series of computer tasks. We obtained a small range of the explained variance in the regression models including FDI and WM indicators. On the basis of WM efficiency indicators, we managed to confirm the existence of memory predictors of susceptibility to illusions. Among the architects, lower efficiency of WM processing and higher field dependence are responsible for greater susceptibility to orientation illusions. (shrink)