Global climate change has been characterised as the crisis of reason (Val Plumwood), imagination (Amitav Ghosh) and language (Elizabeth Rush), to mention some. The ‘everything change’, as Margaret Atwood calls it, arguably also impacts on how we aesthetically perceive, interpret and appreciate nature. This article looks at philosophical theories of nature appreciation against global environmental change. The article examines how human-induced global climate change affects the ‘scientific’ approaches to nature appreciation which base aesthetic judgment on scientific knowledge and the competing (...) ‘non-scientific’ approaches which emphasise the role of emotions, imagination and stories in the aesthetic understanding of environment. The author claims that both approaches are threatened by global climate change and cannot continue as usual. In particular, he explores aesthetic imagination in contemporary times when our visions about environment are thoroughly coloured by worry and uncertainty and there seems to be little room for awe and wonder, which have traditionally characterised the aesthetic experience of nature. Finally, he proposes that art could stimulate environmental imagining in this age of uncertainty. (shrink)

Services of ethics committees are nowadays commonly used in such various spheres of life as health care, public administration, business, law, engineering, and scientific research. It is taken that as their members have expertise in ethics, these committees can have valuable contributions to make in solving practical moral problems. It has, however, also been maintained that it is simply absurd to claim that one has some special knowledge and skills in moral matters; in connection with moral questions there is no (...) expertise to be had. In this paper, I assess this criticism of the use of ethics committees and ethics consultants. I argue that there is no sufficient reason to reject the possibility of ethical expertise. (shrink)

Biodiversity loss is an immense ecological crisis of our time. But while “biodiversity” has become a buzzword in media and policy, conservationists have found it difficult to build a common understanding on the nature and severity of biodiversity loss and the means to tackle it. Perhaps surprisingly, many biologists and philosophers have proposed that biodiversity might be best defended with reference to its aesthetic value. This article explores whether aesthetic values could provide strong support for biodiversity conservation. By exploring the (...) question from the viewpoints of species diversity, ecosystem diversity, and genetic diversity, we argue that there is a mismatch between apparent and real biodiversity and that aesthetics can, at best, give only limited support for biodiversity conservation. (shrink)

It is plausible that what possible courses of action patients may legitimately expect their physicians to take is ultimately determined by what medicine as a profession is supposed to do and, consequently, that we can determine the moral acceptability of voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide on the basis of identifying the proper goals of medicine. This article examines the main ways of defining the proper goals of medicine found in the recent bioethics literature and argues that they cannot provide a (...) clear answer to the question of whether or not voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are morally acceptable. It is suggested that to find a plausible answer to this question and to complete the task of defining the proper goals of medicine, we must determine what is the best philosophical theory about the nature of prudential value. (shrink)

In contemporary medical ethics, it is widely accepted that concern for individual autonomy provides the ethical foundation for the doctrine of informed consent. It is taken that treating a competent patient is morally acceptable only if she has given her informed consent to being treated, because failing to secure the patient’s informed consent to her treatment would violate the patient’s autonomy. In a recent issue of this journal, James Stacey Taylor argues that this conventional view is mistaken. Taylor maintains that (...) a patient lacking information relevant to her medical decisions can be fully autonomous with respect to such decisions, because a person suffers from a diminution in her autonomy with respect to her medical decisions only if she is deliberately kept ignorant or deceived by her healthcare provider. In Taylor’s view, the patient’s autonomy would thus not be compromised if her healthcare provider fails to secure her informed consent to her treatment as a result of negligently omitting to provide relevant information to her. However, since it is intuitively plausible that the healthcare provider is still morally culpable for her negligence, it should, Taylor writes, be taken that the ethical foundation of informed consent is concern for patient wellbeing. While there is reason to be sympathetic to the conclusion that informed consent should be taken to be based on the value of wellbeing, Taylor’s argument does not support that result. (shrink)

We argue that the idea of ECC is more in line with libertarian than liberal thinking. The basic idea of ECC is the dislocation of the provider of citizenship rights from governments to corporations: corporations provide and administrate the same citizenship rights, which governments provided earlier, before the political processes started the privatization of these entitlements . According to John Rawls’ liberal viewpoint, citizens’ relations to the public structures of society are supposed to be fundamentally different from their relations to (...) private associations like business corporations. In libertarian thinking , instead, citizens relations to public institutions do not significantly differ from their relations to business corporations. Both are based on voluntary agreements, bringing forth the idea of a contract-society. Since ECC is backed up by this kind of contractsociety, it brings forth libertarian interpretations of the most central political matters - like the basic structure of society, and the concepts of freedom and democracy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Within corporate social responsibility (CSR), the exploration of the political role of firms (political CSR) has recently experienced a revival. We review three key periods of political CSR literature—classic, instrumental, and new political CSR—and use the Rawlsian conceptualization of division of moral labor within political systems to describe each period’s background political theories. The three main arguments of the paper are as follows. First, classic CSR literature was more pluralistic in terms of background political theories than many later texts. Second, (...) instrumental CSR adopted classical liberalism and libertarian laissez-faire as its structural logic. Third, new political CSR, based on a strong globalist transition of responsibilities and tasks from governments to companies, lacks a conceptualization of division of moral labor that is needed to fully depart from a classical liberalist position. We end by providing a set of recommendations to develop pluralism in political CSR. (shrink)

In this article, I consider whether the advance directive of a person in minimally conscious state ought to be adhered to when its prescriptions conflict with her current wishes. I argue that an advance directive can have moral significance after its issuer has succumbed to minimally conscious state. I also defend the view that the patient can still have a significant degree of autonomy. Consequently, I conclude that her advance directive ought not to be applied. Then I briefly assess whether (...) considerations pertaining to respecting the patient's autonomy could still require obedience to the desire expressed in her advance directive and arrive at a negative answer. (shrink)

It is often accepted that we may legitimately speak about voluntary euthanasia only in cases of persons who are suffering because they are incurably injured or have an incurable disease. This article argues that when we consider the moral acceptability of voluntary euthanasia, we have no good reason to concentrate only on persons who are ill or injured and suffering.

Can literary fictions convey significant philosophical views, understood in terms of propositional knowledge? This study addresses the philosophical value of literature by examining how literary works impart philosophy truth and knowledge and to what extent the works should be approached as communications of their authors. Beginning with theories of fiction, it examines the case against the prevailing ‘pretence’ and ‘make-believe’ theories of fiction hostile to propositional theories of literary truth. Tackling further arguments against the cognitive function and value of literature, (...) this study illustrates how literary works can contribute to knowledge by making assertions and suggestions and by providing hypotheses for the reader to assess. Through clear analysis of the concept of the author, the role of the authorial intention and the different approaches to the ‘meaning’ of a literary work, this study provides an historical survey to the cognitivist—anti-cognitivist dispute, introducing contemporary trends in the discussion before presenting a novel approach to recognizing the cognitive function of literature. An important contribution to philosophical studies of literature and knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, I assess the position that voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide ought not to be accepted in the cases of persons who suffer existentially but who have no medical condition, because existential questions do not fall within the domain of physicians’ professional expertise. I maintain that VE and PAS based on suffering arising from medical conditions involves existential issues relevantly similar to those confronted in connection with existential suffering. On that basis I conclude that if VE and PAS (...) based on suffering arising from medical conditions is taken to fall within the domain of medical expertise, it is not consistent to use the view that physicians’ professional expertise does not extend to existential questions as a reason for denying requests for VE and PAS from persons who suffer existentially but have no medical condition. (shrink)

The debate on the cognitive value of literature is undergoing a change. On the one hand, several philosophers recommend an epistemological move from “knowledge” to “understanding” in describing the cognitive benefits of literature. On the other hand, skeptics call for methodological discussion and demand evidence for the claim that readers actually learn from literature. These two ideas, the notion of understanding and the demand for evidence, seem initially inconsistent, for the notion of understanding implies that the cognitive benefits of literature (...) are ultimately nonverbal and thus inarticulate. In this article, I defend both the move from knowledge to understanding and the demand for evidence. After proposing that the cognitive value of literature is best construed in terms of enhancing the reader's understanding, I argue that the place to look for evidence for the cognitive benefits of literature is not the laboratory but the practice of literature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe political public sphere is at one and the same time both public, and private and religion operates in both the public and the private spheres in the modern way of life. This article approaches the dynamics between the cultural and the political public sphere from the point of view of religion; how the cultural intelligentsia developed its worldview fuelled with attitudes towards religion in times of political turmoil. The case study, based on the empirical analysis of cultural periodicals and (...) societies around them, concerns the Finnish liberal intelligentsia in the early twentieth century. The first decade of the 1900s was a particularly important period of formation for the Finnish public sphere; the societal turmoil highlighted the importance of cultural periodicals in defining what was important for the national public sphere. The case of religion is an illustrative example of it, particularly from the point of view of the liberal intelligentsia of the era. (shrink)

i) Íngrid Vendrell Ferran’s defence of the ‘experiential view’ and her related conception of ‘radical neo-cogntivism’, ii) Robert Piercey’s view of the epistemic value of plots and emplotment, iii) Marya Schechtman’s revisionist ideas of self-narration, and, finally, iv) David Collins’s suggestion of the value of an imaginative engagement with the author of an artwork.

We review the notion of complementarity of observables in quantum mechanics, as formulated and studied by Paul Busch and his colleagues over the years. In addition, we provide further clarification on the operational meaning of the concept, and present several characterisations of complementarity—some of which new—in a unified manner, as a consequence of a basic factorisation lemma for quantum effects. We work out several applications, including the canonical cases of position–momentum, position–energy, number–phase, as well as periodic observables relevant to spatial (...) interferometry. We close the paper with some considerations of complementarity in a noisy setting, focusing especially on the case of convolutions of position and momentum, which was a recurring topic in Paul’s work on operational formulation of quantum measurements and central to his philosophy of unsharp reality. (shrink)

Consumer driven and globally competitive financial markets are crucial for the future prosperity of the Finnish society (Laitamäki, Lehti and Paasio 1996). The largest transfer of wealth in history is currently taking place as Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) prepare for their retirement and inherit the assets of the previous generation. Due to cognitive limitations and emotional biases these consumers don’t always make rational decisions with financial services. This conceptual study addresses irrational financial consumer behavior and its impact on the Finnish (...) business and society. The study focuses on two research questions: 1) What type of behavioral finance concepts explain irrational consumer behavior? 2) What are the implications of these behaviors for the Finnish business and society? The purpose of this study is to assist individual consumers, business leaders and policy makers in making better financial services related decisions in Finland. The need for better decisions has been illustrated during Finnish and international financial crises including the US sub-prime loan turmoil in 2008. (shrink)

English summary: Public opinion and shaping the norms of musical taste : music criticism in the Helsinki Press, 1860-1888.

Consider a case of a patient receiving life-supporting treatment. With appropriate care the patient could be kept alive for several years. Yet his latest prognosis also indicates that his mental abilities will deteriorate significantly and that ultimately he will become incapable of understanding what happens around and to him. Despite his illness, the patient has been eager to live. However, he finds the prospect that he is now faced with devastating. He undergoes an unconscious process that results in his finding (...) himself with a preference to die. Consequently, he requests his doctor to stop the treatment that she is providing. Other things being equal, standard medical ethics and the legislations of most Western countries allow the doctor to adhere to the patient’s request if it is autonomous. While its origins can be traced back to at least J.S. Mill’s work on women’s rights, unconscious alteration of one’s preferences in light of the options available for one has figured, for example, in recent discussion on female oppression and social choice theory. Yet the topic has not received attention in the debate on voluntary euthanasia. The inattention is unfortunate because the central problem with such adaptation has been taken to be that it undermines personal autonomy. This motivates the main question examined in this chapter, i.e. the problem of whether a request for euthanasia based on an adaptive preference is autonomous. (shrink)

The dominant understanding of political corporate social responsibility suggests new, broader political roles for businesses in the globalized economy, challenging the classical liberal social order. In this paper, we show how the major framing of the political CSR discussion not only challenges the classical liberal social order but also goes against the more general political economic perspective of the regulated market economy. We argue that this latter tendency of the political CSR discussion is its main weakness. We introduce a Rawlsian (...) reframing of political CSR that is in line with the idea of a global-regulated market economy and compatible with some of the basic global ethical aims of the political CSR movement. (shrink)

This articles assesses the arguments that bioethicists have presented for the view that patient’ autonomy has value over and beyond its instrumental value in promoting the patients’ wellbeing. It argues that this view should be rejected and concludes that patients’ autonomy should be taken to have only instrumental value in medicine.

Although people who endorse conspiracy theories related to medicine often have negative attitudes toward particular health care measures and may even shun the healthcare system in general, conspiracy theories have received rather meager attention in bioethics literature. Consequently, and given that conspiracy theorizing appears rather prevalent, it has been maintained that there is significant need for bioethics debate over how to deal with conspiracy theories. While the proposals have typically focused on the effects that unwarranted conspiracy theories have in the (...) public health context, Nathan Stout's recent argument concentrates on the impacts that such theories have at the individual level of clinical decision‐making. In this article, I maintain that duly acknowledging the impacts of conspiracy theories that raise Stout's concern does not require bioethics debate over the proper response to the influence of conspiracy theories in healthcare. Having evaluated two possible objections, I conclude by briefly clarifying the purported import of the response to Stout. (shrink)

It has become a commonplace that narrative plays an important, even essential role in our understanding of reality and ourselves. Recently, however, analytic philosophers have questioned narrative’s alleged epistemic value. This essay defends the epistemic significance of narratives, everyday and literary. First, it will argue that the philosophical attack on the value of narratives operates on problematic concepts. Second, it proposes that the epistemic significance of narratives is not to be explained in terms of knowledge but understanding.

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) constitute a qualitative representation for conditional independence (CI) properties of a probability distribution. It is known that every CI statement implied by the topology of a DAG is witnessed over it under a graph-theoretic criterion of d-separation. Alternatively, all such implied CI statements are derivable from the local independencies encoded by a DAG using the so-called semi-graphoid axioms. We consider Labeled Directed Acyclic Graphs (LDAGs) modeling graphically scenarios exhibiting context-specific independence (CSI). Such CSI statements are modeled (...) by labeled edges, where labels encode contexts in which the edge vanishes. We study the problem of identifying all independence statements implied by the structure and the labels of an LDAG. We show that this problem is coNP-hard for LDAGs and formulate a sound extension of the semi-graphoid axioms for the derivation of such implied independencies. Finally we connect our study to certain qualitative versions of independence ubiquitous in database theory and teams semantics. (shrink)

Rawls scholarship has not paid much attention to Rawls's early methodological writings so far, pretty much focusing on thereflective equilibrium(RE) which he is understood to have adopted inA Theory of Justice. Nelson Goodman's coherence-theoretical formulations concerning the justification of inductive logic inFact, Fiction and Forecasthave been suggested as the source of the RE. Following Rawls's methodological development in his early works, we shall challenge both these views. Our analysis reveals that the basic elements of RE can be located in his (...) ‘Two Concepts of Rules’ essay. We shall further show that the origins of RE go all the way back to Aristotle's methods of ethics, as RE accords with the methodology entitledsaving the appearances(SA) in recent Aristotle scholarship. (shrink)

The dominant framing of the political corporate social responsibility discussion challenges the traditional economic conception of the firm and aims to produce a paradigm shift in CSR studies wherein the traditional, apolitical view of corporations’ roles in society is replaced by the political conception of CSR. In this paper, we show how the major framing of the political CSR discussion calls for a redirection to take international hard legal and moral regulations, as well as the need for the boundaries between (...) business and politics into account. (shrink)

Introduction Cholbi, Michael (et al.) Pages 1-10 -/- Assisted Dying and the Proper Role of Patient Autonomy Bullock, Emma C. Pages 11-25 -/- Preventing Assistance to Die: Assessing Indirect Paternalism Regarding Voluntary Active Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Schramme, Thomas Pages 27-40 -/- Autonomy, Interests, Justice and Active Medical Euthanasia Savulescu, Julian Pages 41-58 -/- Mental Illness, Lack of Autonomy, and Physician-Assisted Death Varelius, Jukka Pages 59-77 -/- Euthanasia for Mental Suffering Raus, Kasper (et al.) Pages 79-96 -/- Assisted Dying (...) for Individuals with Dementia: Challenges for Translating Ethical Positions into Law Downie, Jocelyn (et al.) Pages 97-123 -/- Clinical Ethics Consultation and Physician Assisted Suicide Adams, David M. Pages 125-147 -/- License to Kill: A New Model for Excusing Medically Assisted Dying? Huxtable, Richard (et al.) Pages 149-168 -/- Medically Enabled Suicides Cholbi, Michael Pages 169-184 -/- Saving Lives with Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Organ Donation After Assisted Dying Shaw, David M. Pages 185-192 -/- Implanted Medical Devices and End-of-Life Decisions Gill, Michael B. Pages 193-215 -/- Everyday Attitudes About Euthanasia and the Slippery Slope Argument Feltz, Adam Pages 217-237 -/- “You Got Me Into This…”: Procreative Responsibility and Its Implications for Suicide and Euthanasia Weinberg, Rivka Pages 239-252 . (shrink)

Services of ethics consultants are nowadays commonly used in such various spheres of life as engineering, public administration, business, law, health care, journalism, and scientific research. It has however been maintained that use of ethics consultants is incompatible with personal autonomy; in moral matters individuals should be allowed to make their own decisions. The problem this criticism refers to can be conceived of as a conflict between the professional autonomy of ethics experts and the autonomy of the persons they serve. (...) This paper addresses this conflict and maintains that when the nature of both ethics consultation and individual autonomy is properly understood, the professional autonomy of ethics experts is compatible with the autonomy of the persons they assist. (shrink)

Recent progress in neurosciences has improved our understanding of chronic disorders of consciousness. One example of this advancement is the emergence of the new diagnostic category of minimally conscious state (MCS). The central characteristic of MCS is impaired consciousness. Though the phenomenon now referred to as MCS pre-existed its inclusion in diagnostic classifications, the current medical ethical concepts mainly apply to patients with normal consciousness and to non-conscious patients. Accordingly, how we morally should stand with persons in minimally conscious state (...) remains unclear. In this paper, I examine whether the notion of human dignity could provide us with guidance with the moral difficulties MCS gives rise to. More precisely, I focus on the question of whether we are justified in holding that persons in minimally conscious state possess human dignity. (shrink)

Challenging existing methodological conceptions of the analytic approach to aesthetics, Jukka Mikkonen brings together philosophy, literary studies and cognitive psychology to offer a new theory on the cognitive value of reading fiction. -/- Philosophy, Literature and Understanding defends the epistemic significance of narratives, arguing that it should be explained in terms of understanding rather than knowledge. Mikkonen formulates understanding as a cognitive process, which he connects to narrative imagining in order to assert that narrative is a central tool for (...) communicating understanding. Demonstrating the effects that literary works have on their readers, he examines academic critical analysis, responses of the reading public and nonfictional writings that include autobiographical testimony to their writer's influences and attitudes to life. In doing so, he provides empirical evidence of the cognitive benefits of literature and of how readers demonstrate the growth of their understanding. -/- By drawing on the written testimony of the reader, this book is an important intervention into debates on the value of literature that incorporates understanding in new and imaginative ways. (shrink)

Opponents of voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide often maintain that the procedures ought not to be accepted because ending an innocent human life would both be morally wrong in itself and have unfortunate consequences. A gravely suffering patient can grant that ending his life would involve such harm but still insist that he would have reason to continue living only if there were something to him in his abstaining from ending his life. Though relatively rarely, the notion of meaning of (...) life has figured in recent medical ethical debate on voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. And in current philosophical discussion on meaning of life outside the medical ethical debate on voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide several authors have argued that being moral and having a meaningful existence are connected to each other. In this article, I assess whether his intentionally refraining from causing the harm related to voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide would involve something to such a patient in the sense that it would promote the meaningfulness of his life. (shrink)

This précis gives an overview of my book Philosophy, Literature, and Understanding: On Reading and Cognition which is the subject of a book symposium in Philosophia. The overview covers the book’s four chapters that explore i) the nature of literary imagination, ii) the epistemic value of narratives, iii) the concepts of cognition, knowledge and understanding with regard to fiction, and iv) evidence for claims about the epistemic impact of literary works on their readers.

In this paper, the author argues that literary works have distinct cognitive significance in changing their readers’ beliefs. In particular, he discusses ‘philosophical fictions’ and truthclaims that they may imply. Basing himself broadly on Aristotle’s view of the enthymeme, he argues that a work of literary fiction persuades readers of its truths by its dramatic structure, by illustrating or implying the suppressed conclusion. Further, he suggests that it is exactly this ‘literary persuasion’ which distinguishes literary works from merely didactic works (...) prone to overt ‘argumentation’ and instruction. (shrink)

Consider that an individual improves her capacities by neuroscientific means. It turns out that, besides altering her in the way(s) she intended, the enhancement also changes her personality in significant way(s) she did not foresee. Yet the person endorses her new self because the neuroenhancement she underwent changed her. Can the person’s approval of her new personality be autonomous? While questions of autonomy have already gathered a significant amount of attention in philosophical literature on human enhancement, the problem just described—henceforth (...) referred to as the question whether selfvalidating neuroenhancement can be autonomous—would not appear to have received due consideration. This article takes a step towards remedying the shortage. I start by explicating the main points of departure of its argument. In the subsequent sections of the article, I consider several possible reasons for deeming self-validating neuroenhancement incompatible with autonomy. On the basis of the consideration, I propose that self-validating neuroenhancement can be autonomous. (shrink)

Emancipatory aesthetics : Eino Krohn as a critic of art and literature.

Life-history evolution is a complexprocess. Life-history theory covers the fundamentallevel of the process, the evolution of life-historytraits. Life-history traits interact; thosecoevolving as a response to the same selectionpressure form life-history tactics. Top level of thehierarchy, life-history strategy, is formed bygenetically interconnected tactics. Our aim is toexpand the traditional view to life-history evolutionby considering what boundary conditions a successfullife-history strategy has to fulfil. We claim thatthe most fundamental condition successful strategieshave to meet is to minimize the risk of evolutionaryfailure. Here the (...) risk of failure refers to failurein transferring practitioners of the strategy to thenext time point, either through survival, or byreproduction. We make an attempt to classify types ofrisks as they lead to evolutionary failure, anddiscuss how risk minimization ideas may be approachedempirically. We conclude that understanding howtraits evolve may not cover all aspects of howstrategies evolve. We emphasize that bookkeeping ofthe actual causes of failure might help in developinglife-history theory that uses causes of selection topredict responses to selection. (shrink)