Philosophers typically rely on empirical data when they comment on psychopaths’ moral responsibility. Many argue that psychopaths, as per the data, suffer from significant impairments in the precursors of moral reasoning and behavior, and therefore they should not be held morally responsible for their actions. However, careful analysis of these studies shows that this view is mistaken. We discuss how several philosophers— perhaps following the lead of social scientists—have systematically misinterpreted or simplified psychological data to support their conclusions about psychopaths’ (...) responsibility. We discuss four data sources: Case studies, the moral/conventional distinction task, fear conditioning, and facial affect recognition experiments. We examine how errors in the interpretation of these data have influenced, for the worse, the moral responsibility discourse. We recommend that philosophers exercise more caution in drawing conclusions from the psychological data on psychopaths. (shrink)

Questionable research practices are a well-recognized problem in psychology. Coding bias, or the tendency of review studies to disproportionately cite positive findings from original research, has received comparatively little attention. Coding bias is more likely to occur when original research, such as neuroimaging, includes large numbers of effects, and is most concerning in applied contexts. We evaluated coding bias in reviews of structural magnetic resonance imaging studies of PCL-R psychopathy. We used PRISMA guidelines to locate all relevant original sMRI studies (...) and reviews. The proportion of null-findings cited in reviews was significantly lower than those reported in original research, indicating coding bias. Coding bias was not affected by publication date or review design. Reviews recommending forensic applications—such as treatment amenability or reduced criminal responsibility—were no more accurate than purely theoretical reviews. Coding bias may have contributed to a perception that structural brain abnormalities in psychopaths are more consistent than they actually are, and by extension that sMRI findings are suitable for forensic application. We discuss possible sources for the pervasive coding bias we observed, and we provide recommendations to counteract this bias in review studies. Until coding bias is addressed, we argue that this literature should not inform conclusions about psychopaths' neurobiology, especially in forensic contexts. (shrink)

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, Neumann, & Mokros 2018) scales are among the most widely used forensic assessment tools. Their perceived utility rests partly on their ability to assess stable personality traits indicative of a lack of conscience, which then facilitates behavioral predictions useful in forensic decisions. In this systematic review, we evaluate the empirical evidence behind 3 fundamental justifications for using the PCL scales in forensics, namely, that they are empirically predictive of (1) criminal behavior, (2) treatment outcomes, (...) and (3) a lack of conscience. We found the PCL scales can predict criminal behavior to a statistically significant degree, though with important limitations. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of treatment and rehabilitation outcomes. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of a lack of conscience. These findings disprove widespread beliefs about PCL psychopathy among forensic practitioners and questions the current and future role of the PCL scales in forensic settings. (shrink)

The philosophical debate over psychopaths’ moral and criminal responsibility is increasingly evidence based. However, as we noted, such arguments are misleading if philosophers only consider evidence that supports their own positions. In his response, Glannon counters our argument by introducing new evidence—neuroimaging data—and so demonstrates the exact problem we outlined; Strijbos, in contrast, offers a workable solution.Glannon’s response is a succinct summation of the strengths and weaknesses that philosophers bring to the debate. Although Glannon accurately portrays the potential role of (...) neuroimaging data in determining responsibility as merely supplementary to behavior, he simultaneously mistakes the... (shrink)

'Value' is a central concept in all of the principles and methods applied in Lean Construction, but it is rather difficult to provide a precise definition of the term. The problem lies in the word value itself: its ambiguity and vagueness make theorization difficult. This paper investigates the philosophical concept of value from a Lean Construction perspective. Several elements that contribute to value are considered, including objective elements such as waste reduction, quality, price and functionality, and more subjective elements such (...) as design. The hypothesis of this paper is that the reduction or removal of elements that detract from value, such as waste and costs, is not the only means by which value may be increased. The Sorites paradox is used to form a cohesive perspective on some different meanings of the word ‗value‘. One of the known ‗solutions‘ of the paradox, utilization theory, is then explored through a case study in off-site construction that illustrates how different actors in the construction process view value, and how utility theory can be used to provide a consensus on value that is acceptable. In practice, ‗value‘ is ambiguous because actors generally value different things and these views seldom converge during projects. Our results indicate that the actors involved strive for value individually. Analysis using utility theory allows the actors to establish a shared conceptualization of value, expressed in monetary terms. The work described in this paper aims to improve our understanding of value and of how to design products in construction to improve value for clients of industrialized housing. (shrink)

In the present study, cross-modal (i.e., across sensory modalities such as smell and sound) iconicity (i.e., resemblance) and indexicality (i.e., contiguity) in lexical sensory and emotional signs in Finnish Sign Language will be considered from an articulatory perspective (i.e., the production of signs). Such cross-modal iconicity has not been extensively studied previously, so here, with the help of cognitive semiotics, I aim to carefully describe the cross-modal patterns observed across 118 signs, including 60 sensory signs and 58 emotional signs. The (...) analysis is framed within the theoretical model of Semiotic Hierarchy, which entails a non-reductionist view of meaning. In addition, a pheno-methodological triangulation will be applied: phenomenology (first-person method), literature of phenomenological and semiotic descriptions (second-person perspective) and experimental findings (third-person perspective). The results of this analysis show that (a) 71 of the 118 sensory and emotional signs are cross-modally indexical, (b) only 10 of the 71 signs can be regarded as cross-modally iconic, (c) cross-modal iconicity is highly diagrammatic, (d) iconicity and indexicality are highly integrated, and (e) articulatory feedback matters in the formation of semiotic patterns. This study contributes to our understanding of cross-modal iconicity in signed languages, as well as studies in semiotic systems more generally. (shrink)

This article concerns the problem of time pressures in higher education from the perspective of Newtonian (clock)time and pedagogical action. While most recent critiques of contemporary time pressures turn to alternative time theories in place of Newtonian temporality, the current paper outlines a way to conceive education from a Newtonian time perspective while also retaining theorizations of education as a form of cyclical and uncertain interaction. Time is theorized as changes in the immediate present which transform an uncertain and potential (...) future to an evident and permanent past in a Newtonian-linear temporal framework. Education, on the other hand, is defined as pedagogical influence to foster student’s human growth, demonstrated in a teaching–studying–learning relationship. Slow education theories and strategies are proposed as a way to reclaim time for education from the accelerative time policies of HE from within a linear time perspective instead of having to propose alternative time theories to ‘free’ education from its rootedness in the temporality of past, present, and future. (shrink)

This article provides an in-depth analysis of a conversational exchange initiated by a customer’s price question in real-life business-to-business sales encounters. The analysis focusses on when the customer requests a price, what that implies as well as how the price discussion is conducted. Marketing literature usually considers product/service price to be an obstacle that the salesperson needs to overcome; we demonstrate that the price question is a positive signal for the salesperson. By requesting the price, the customer claims sufficient understanding (...) of the offer, recognition of the service value and a readiness to move to the next phase in the meeting. The salesperson initiates an insert expansion to tailor the price to her or his customer and then informs the price in an expanded clausal response to build customer value. The conversation analytic study was based on a dataset of 13 video-recorded B2B sales meetings in Finland. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of trust put forth by Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons. It shows the outline of Luhmann's theory of trust and its connections to his autopoietic systems theory. It also deliberates upon the role of trust in the Luhmannian research of future society as well as examines the role of trust in risk society and shows why norms, values and familiarity play only a peripheral role in today's society. Trust is a way to control everyday interaction (...) of the future. But what are the challenges and limits of Luhmann's concept of trust? (shrink)

English Summary: Self and the spirit : the modern subject in Christian idealistic nationalism and Rolf Lagerborg's cultural radicalism in Finland c. 1800-1914.

The article investigates the rhetorical means of mediating affective experience in occasioned storytelling. The completion of this article has been supported by The Emil Aaltonen Foundation and The Academy of Finland project (285144) The Literary in Life and The Academy of Finland project (326645) European Solidarities in Turmoil. We are interested in the forms and aspects of bodily action in signifying and communicating a “para-factual experience” that was triggered by a real-life incident, but in fact only took place in a (...) person’s imagination. We explore the case of a TV interview in which an American living in Finland narrates a personal, disturbing experience related to the news about 9/11. The story presents a visual scenario of the teller’s affective reaction towards two Muslim women in a grocery store. What is interesting in the story are its involuntary dimensions: the scenario portrays a picture of the teller that he finds unrecognizable and detached from his sense of self as a person. Even if the act was never actually realized, to the teller it felt real and compelling, as is manifest in the way he translates the scenario into a bodily performance. The teller not only uses his body to tell the story but momentarily turns the surrounding setting into a scene in the storyworld in which he plays the unidentified me. We call this physical performance of the imagined scene the embodied ekphrasis of experience. In Semiotica, the rhetorical device of ekphrasis has appeared before (see Frosh 2003; Hopkins 2015; Nesselroth 2016; Sarapik 2009) from such literary and linguistic perspectives, as well as through the lens of media research and cultural studies, to which our application will add from the viewpoint of ethnomethodology and the social sciences. Deploying research on multimodal interaction and intermediality, our empirical analysis explicates how the teller’s body, and not just words, build action, convey affective meaning, and resemiotize and mobilize a physical enactment of the past hypothetical scene. (shrink)

Research on entrepreneurship as a policy discourse has focused mostly on relations between the discourse and targets of the policy, that is, actors intended to become entrepreneurial or entrepreneurs, while the role of policy implementers has received much less attention. The present study examines the ‘rationality’ of entrepreneurship policies by analyzing how actors in charge of the grassroots level policy implementation in the farming context use entrepreneurship discourse and argue for the communicative and interactive viability of their mission. The analysis (...) of stances and positioning in interview talk reveals that policy implementers are active discourse users who, on the one hand, are able to reflect on the dilemmas and problems inherent in their task but, on the other hand, use their rhetorical agency to maintain and defend their mission as promoters of entrepreneurship policy and to save and support their own face as experts. As a result, the implementation emerges as a delicately managed interaction process. (shrink)

We present a short introduction to, and the first English language translation of, Theodor W. Adorno's 1964 article, "Meinungsforschung und Öffentlichkeit." In this article, Adorno situates the misunderstanding of public opinion within a dialectic of elements of publicness itself: empirical publicness' dependence on a normative ideology of publicness, and modern publicness' tendency to undermine its own principles. He also locates it in the dual role of mass media as both fora for the expression of opinion and, as he calls them, (...) "organs of public opinion." The introduction provides a discussion of Adorno's reception in the American academy, arguing that contemporary sociological practice should be concerned with the problems Adorno raises. We suggest that Adorno's relegation to the fields of philosophy and aesthetics belies his relevance to empirical sociological research. (shrink)

Psychopathy is one of the most frequently cited disorders in discussions of moral and criminal responsibility. Many philosophers and psychologists have argued that psychopaths’ impaired capacity for empathy, diminished responses to fear-inducing stimuli, and failure to conform to social norms indicate that they are not responsible for their actions. In “Philosophers on psychopaths: A cautionary tale in interdisciplinarity,” Jarkko Jalava and Stephanie Griffiths cite psychological data from case studies, the moral/conventional distinction task, fear conditioning and facial affect recognition (...) experiments in arguing that philosophers systematically misinterpret or simplify the data to support their conclusions... (shrink)

Do psychopaths suffer from impairments that undermine their capacity for moral reasoning and behavior? And, if so, does that mean they are not morally responsible for their actions? The first, empirical question might seem to be rather straightforward, whereas the second, philosophical question might seem more complex and therefore more difficult to answer. In their rich and thought-provoking paper, Jalava and Griffiths target the first question. They forcefully remind us of the fact that answering empirical questions can be just (...) as complex as answering philosophical ones. Do psychopaths suffer from responsibility-relevant moral impairments? Based on the empirical data Jalava and Griffiths discuss in their... (shrink)