Various due process provisions designed for use by civil servants in administrative decision-making may become redundant when automated decision-making is taken into use in public administration. Problems with mechanisms of good government, responsibility and liability for automated decisions and the rule of law require attention of the law-maker in adapting legal provisions to this new form of decision-making. Although the general data protection regulation of the European Union is important in acknowledging automated decision-making, most of the legal safeguards within administrative (...) due process have to be provided for by the national law-maker. It is suggested that all countries have a need to review their rules of administrative due process with a view to bringing them up to date regarding the requirements of automated decision-making. In whichever way the legislation is framed, the key issues are that persons who develop the algorithm and the code as well as persons who run or deal with the software within public authorities are aware of the preventive safeguards of legality in the context of automated decision-making, not only of the reactive safeguards constituted by the complaint procedures, and that legal mechanisms exist under which these persons can be held accountable and liable for decisions produced by automated decision-making. It is also argued that only rule-based systems of automatized decision-making are compatible with the rule of law and that there is a general interest in preventing a development into a rule of algorithm. (shrink)

This PhD thesis presents some of my earlier attempts to develop a trope bundle theory. It contains a fairly comprehensive discussion of Simons' (1994, 1998) views and Denkel's (1995, 1996) Saturation Theory, which might still be useful.

The use of patient restrictions (e.g. involuntary admission, seclusion, restraint) is a complex ethical dilemma in psychiatric care. The present study explored nurses’ (n = 22) and physicians’ (n = 5) perceptions of what actually happens when an aggressive behaviour episode occurs on the ward and what alternatives to seclusion and restraint are actually in use as normal standard practice in acute psychiatric care. The data were collected by focus group interviews and analysed by inductive content analysis. The participants believed (...) that the decision-making process for managing patients’ aggressive behaviour contains some in-built ethical dilemmas. They thought that patients’ subjective perspective received little attention. Nevertheless, the staff proposed and appeared to use a number of alternatives to minimize or replace the use of seclusion and restraint. Medical and nursing staff need to be encouraged and taught to: (1) tune in more deeply to reasons for patients’ aggressive behaviour; and (2) use alternatives to seclusion and restraint in order to humanize patient care to a greater extent. (shrink)

Filosofia voisi keskustelevan luonteensa takia sopia erityisen hyvin avoimeen julkaisemiseen, mutta se ei ole siinä niin pitkällä kuin monet luonnontieteet tai lääketiede. Tässä artikkelissa filosofian alan julkaisemisen kulttuuria tarkastellaan laajasti: aina preprint-julkaisemisesta avoimen julkaisemisen eri muotoihin – myös mahdollisia tulevaisuuden suuntauksia hahmotellaan. Artikkeli käy läpi filosofian lehtien avoimen julkaisemisen käytäntöjä sekä kotimaisissa että kansainvälisissä lehdissä. Myös avoimen julkaisemisen erilaisten tukimuotojen vaikutus julkaisemiseen tuodaan esiin, kun pureudutaan tarkemmin Helsingin yliopiston filosofian alan julkaisukäytäntöihin.

The article considers how the preservation of biodiversity is morally justified in some of the key texts on environmental ethics, i.e. whether or not biodiversity can be justified as a moral end in itself. The views are classified according to the criteria which they hold to be the ultimate moral beneficiaries; positions are named as anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism. In general, they are not in favor of regarding biodiversity as intrinsically valuable, but think its moral value as derivative. This means (...) that the myriad characters of life on Earth are to be maintained as diverse because of their instrumental value for the constituents. It seems that Naess's deep ecology is the only major position that argues for biodiversity's intrinsic value, but this view has proved to be problematic. (shrink)

Ontologiset kategoriateoriat pyrkivät vastaamaan metafysiikan klassiseen ongelmaan: kysymykseen siitä, mihin eri kategorioihin oliot eli entiteetit jakaantuvat. Olioilla tarkoitetaan tässä mitä tahansa, joka on olemassa. Olevan kategoriat eli ontologiset kategoriat (lyhyesti kategoriat) ovat alustavasti olioiden hyvin yleisiä lajeja. Jäsenyys olioiden kategoriassa ei niinkään kerro sitä, mitä piirteitä oliolla on, vaan sen olemisen tavan ¬– miten se esimerkiksi on tai voi olla maailman rakenneosa. Esimerkkejä mahdollisista kategorioista ovat konkreettiset partikulaariset yksilöoliot (substanssit), ominaisuudet, relaatiot, prosessit, tapahtumat ja joukot. -/- 1. Mitä ovat ontologiset (...) kategoriateoriat -/- 2. Uusaristoteelinen realismi -/- 3. Russellilainen realismi -/- 4. Universaalikimpputeoriat -/- 5. Nominalismi: substanssi-modus-teoriat -/- 6. Trooppiteoriat -/- 7. Jyrkkä nominalismi -/- 8. Tapahtuma- ja prosessiontologiat -/- 9. Ontologisten kategorioiden tutkimus Suomessa -/- 10. Suositeltavaa jatkolukemista -/- 11. Lähteet . (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a template for understanding the tragic dimension of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy through a reading of his early collaborative work with Max Horkheimer, the Dialectic of Enlightenment. While Adorno’s view has often been considered to be tragic, little has been done to reconstruct the tragic dimension of his thought. I argue that the view of the human condition, presented in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, is founded on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical convictions that have structural similarities (...) with the positions held by theorists and philosophers of tragedy and the tragic. Since traces of these tragic elements can be found throughout Adorno’s mature philosophy, the approach presented in this article may serve as a model for a more detailed mapping and examination of the tragic dimension of his thought in future research. (shrink)

Since the publication of Dieter Henrich's classic paper, ‘The proof structure of the transcendental deduction’, in The Review of Metaphysics 22 , the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding has been under focus in Kant studies in a very special way. The B-deduction seems to be a proof in two steps. Consequently, the focus has been on questions like, ‘What is the structure of the deduction?’, and ‘Why is the deduction carried out in two steps?’ No doubt (...) the structure of the deduction has been the most debated exegetical issue in Kant's theoretical philosophy, and the most important too, while the answers mirror one's overall understanding of Kant. (shrink)

Though the term ‘biodiversity’ is a neologism, the many ideas behind it are timeless. Classifications of place, species, and landraces occur across cultures and have facilitated human survival. The...

Climate change poses grave risks to food security, and mitigation and adaptation actions have so far been insufficient to lessen the risk of climate-induced violations of the right to food. Could safeguarding the right to food, then, justify some forms of geoengineering? This article examines geoengineering through the analytical lens of the right to food. We look at the components of food security and consider how the acceptability of geoengineering relates to the right to food via its impacts on these (...) components. Our examination shows that results vary greatly between different forms of geoengineering: while some forms of geoengineering fail to respect the right to food, certain other forms may even become obligatory to protect the right to food. It appears that there is no support for aerosol-based solar radiation management, whereas some carbon dioxide removal methods can help protect or promote the right to food. The ethical challenges related to carbon dioxide removal methods are, we note, similar to those that will also be faced in the course of climate change mitigation. (shrink)

The current issue of Approaching Religion includes articles based on conference papers presented at the Fifth Finnish Colloquium on the Middle East and North Africa Studies, which was organised by the Finnish Institute in the Middle East, the University of Eastern Finland, Faculty of Theology, and the University of Helsinki, including the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Trad-itions, in Joensuu, 29–31 May 2017. The theme of the conference was ‘Transformations of Identity and Space in (...) the Middle East and North Africa’, and it explored the construction and transformation of identity in space, whether geographical, mental or virtual. (shrink)

There is broad scientific consensus on the anthropogenic roots of the environmental crisis, whether we think about biodiversity decline, climate change, pollution or, in general, about the increasing scarcity of ecological space for living entities. Unlike humans, other living beings have no notion of crisis and are probably not bothered by such highly abstract concerns. When a crisis occurs, non-humans either adapt or vanish, whereas humans may see it lurking ahead and become anxious. This human urge to reflect on the (...) state of nature and the role of humanity is manifest in the new concept of the Anthropocene. Originally, human rights and environmental crisis entered the public sphere as separate themes but from the 1970s, they began to appear together on a regular basis in legal and political documents and in research literature. Philosophically, the ultimate question is whether we humans are to blame ourselves for the environmental crisis because of the rights that we grant to ourselves. In other words, are human rights, above all, a source of the environmental crisis or an essential element in the search for solutions? In this article, this quandary is approached philosophically from the belief that the framework of human rights might help us envisage a civilised way out of the crisis. (shrink)

Teos sisältää 89 pienoiselämäkertaa, jossa filosofisista kysymyksistä väitelleet suomalaiset kertovat kokemuksistaan matkalla kohti väitöstä. Väittelyiden aikaväli sijoittuu vuosille 1953–2010, ja mukana on monenlaisia tarinoita ja anekdootteja akateemisesta opintiestä ympäri maailmaa, Tasmaniasta Jyväskylään. -/- Kertojina toimivat monet arvostetuimmat suomalaiset filosofit ja toisaalta vasta äskettäin tutkimustaan puolustaneet tulevaisuuden lupaukset. Kirjoittajat kertovat syttymisestään filosofiaan, opiskeluvuosistaan, tutkijanuransa huipuista ja aallonpohjista sekä väitöstapahtumasta ja sen jälkeisistä tuntemuksista. -/- The book includes 98 mini-autobiographies of Finnish philosophers.

The only monograph about Leibniz in Finland is Raili Kauppi, Über die Leibnische Logik. This doctoral thesis appeared in series Acta Philosophica Fennica XII in 1960. Kauppi’s thesis continues on the footsteps of Couturat’s and Russell’s, with some original insights. There have also been some influential articles.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of table -- Notes on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: environmental human rights and political theory -- 1 The rights of humans as ecologically embedded beings -- 2 Defining the natural in the Anthropocene: what does the right to a 'natural' environment mean now? -- 3 Reconciliation of nature and society: how far can rights take us? -- 4 The foundation of rights to nature -- 5 Rights to natural resources and (...) human rights -- 6 Making sense of the human right to landscape -- 7 What's so good about environmental human rights? Constitutional versus international environmental rights -- 8 Environmental human rights - concepts of responsibility -- 9 Future people's rights: dispelling an ontological worry -- 10 Human rights-based precautionary approaches and risk imposition in the context of climate change -- Index. (shrink)

Trope theories aim to eschew the primitive dichotomy between characterising (properties, relations) and characterized entities (objects). This article (in Finnish) presents a new trope theoretical analysis of relational inherence as the best way out of the impasse created by the alleged necessity to choose between an eliminativist and a primitivist ("relata-specific") view about relations in trope theory.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) is one of the most important figures of the early modern era. His plan for scientific reform played a central role in the birth of the new science. The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive survey of his writings on science, including his classifications of sciences, his theory of knowledge and of forms, his speculative philosophy, his idea of cooperative scientific research and the providential aspects of Baconian science. There are also essays on Bacon's theory of (...) rhetoric and history as well as on his moral and political philosophy and on his legacy. Throughout, the contributors aim to place Bacon in his historical context. (shrink)

Is it possible to get by with just one ontological category? We evaluate L.A. Paul's attempt to do so: the mereological bundle theory. The upshot is that Paul's attempt to construct a one category ontology may be challenged with some of her own arguments. In the positive part of the paper we outline a two category ontology with property universals and kind universals. We will also examine Paul's arguments against a version of universal bundle theory that takes spatiotemporal co-location instead (...) of compresence or coinstantiation as the feature by which we can identify genuine bundles. We compare this novel theory, bundle theory with kinds, and Paul's mereological bundle theory and apply them to a case study concerning entangled fermions and co-located bosons. (shrink)

According to Robert K. Garcia, trope theories divide into two distinct groups based on the type of tropes (module or modifier) assumed. Although left unnoticed by many trope theorists, Garcia claims that the module/modifier distinction has important consequences regarding the ontological merits of the different trope theories. In this article, I argue that Garcia’s distinction between module and modifier tropes fails to provide any correct or informative classification of trope theories: Garcia’s distinction is based on assumptions and primitive notions trope (...) theorists explicitly reject. Trope theories attempt to eliminate the fundamental object-property dichotomy by means of the analysis of inherence (an object having a property). By contrast, Garcia’s module and modifier tropes are different kinds of particular properties, which fundamentally inhere in a property bearer. Therefore, no trope is a module or modifier trope in Garcia’s sense. Finally, there is an ambiguity in Garcia’s use of his term “character making” that makes void his arguments for the module/modifier distinction based on the conception of non-module tropes as “character makers”. (shrink)

Kertomus Leibnizin kuolemasta / An account of the death of Leibniz.

Artikkeli Leibnizin ja Hobbesin harkinnasta ja tahdosta / An article on the views of deliberation and willing in Leibniz and Hobbes.

This article (in Finnish) discusses Seppo Albert Kivinen's (1933-2021) views on identity and existence conditions of universals. Moreover, the article puts the views to larger context.

This paper (in Finnish) concerns the ontological status of categories of entities. I argue that categories are not be considered as further entities. Rather, it is suffcient for entities belonging to the same category that they are in exactly the same formal ontological relations and have the same general category features.

This article presents a trope bundle theory of simple substances, the Strong Nuclear Theory[SNT] building on the schematic basis offered by Simons's (1994) Nuclear Theory[NT]. The SNT adopts Ellis's (2001) dispositional essentialist conception of simple substances as powerful particulars: all of their monadic properties are dispositional. Moreover, simple substances necessarily belong to some natural kind with a real essence formed by monadic properties. The SNT develops further the construction of substances the NT proposes to obtain an adequate trope bundle theory (...) of powerful particulars. The SNT allows for co-located powerful particulars. However, every powerful particular is necessarily co-located with its constituent tropes, which determine its causal powers. Every constituent trope of substance i is part of a trope aggregate (the n-bundle or c-bundle) that forms an individual figuring in the basic spatio-temporal relations. The location of these individuals determines the location of individual tropes. Since they are necessarily co-located with substance i when they exist, every trope t of i is necessarily co-located with i when it exits. Every simple substance has nuclear tropes necessary to it. It belongs to certain primary natural kind K because its nuclear tropes belong to certain distinct determinate kinds. (shrink)

The wavefunction is the central mathematical entity of quantum mechanics, but it still lacks a universally accepted interpretation. Much effort is spent on attempts to probe its fundamental nature. Here I investigate the consequences of a matter ontology applied to spherical masses of constant bulk density. The governing equation for the center-of-mass wavefunction is derived and solved numerically. The ground state wavefunctions and resulting matter densities are investigated. A lowering of the density from its bulk value is found for low (...) masses due to increased spatial spreading. A discussion of the possibility to experimentally observe these effects is given and the possible consequences for choosing an ontological interpretation for quantum mechanics are commented upon. (shrink)

The philosophical study of the environment exists because philosophers are concerned about the environmental problems. This concern may not be the only factor that motivates to do environmental philosophy. For some scholars, the topic is philosophically intriguing. This paper suggests that two approaches can be distinguished: practical and philosophical. The starting point of the practical approach is the existence of environmental problems adopted from environmental sciences and public debates. These problems are then analysed philosophically so as to increase our understanding (...) about them. According to the philosophical approach, the focus is on philosophical problems formulated in an environmentally meaningful way but the problems are independent of environmental problems. For example, Routley’s famous “last man” argument stems from the classic problem whether values are independent of valuers or not? Both approaches have their limitations. As to the philosophical approach, the problems under scrutiny are abstract and rather distant from real-life environmental concerns, whereas the practical approach may assume a naïve realist stance to the existence of problems. How to mix the philosophers’ fascination with intellectual problems with the real-life concerns over environmental degradation is a major challenge for environmental philosophy. (shrink)

Tyynen rauhallisesti, traagisen ennenaikaisesti, koomisen kommelluksen seurauksena, arkipäiväisen banaalisti... -/- Filosofin kuolema sisältää neljäkymmentä tarinaa siitä, miten filosofi kohtaa kuoleman. Mitä Pythagoras ajatteli kuolemanjälkeisestä elämästä? Mikä oli Sokrateen itsemurhan tausta? Entä miten esimerkiksi Platon, Pyrrhon, Aristoteles, Plotinos, Avicenna, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Kaila ja Foucault suhtautuivat kuolemaan ja miten he kuolivat? Heijastaako filosofin tapa kuolla hänen käsitystään elämästä ja kuolemasta?

Kuvittelukyky tai imaginaatio esiintyy varsin harvoin Leibnizin kirjoituksissa ja siksi siitä ei ole kovin laajalti keskusteltu Leibniz-kommentaareissa ennen kuin aivan viime aikoina. Näissäkin tapauksissa keskustelu on pitkälti rajoittunut kuvittelukyvyn rooliin tiedostuksessa. Yritän tässä esitelmässä vetää sillan kuvittelukyvyn ja moraalisen toiminnan välille, jota tietääkseni ei ole ennen varsinaisesti tehty.

In this article, we present a new conception of internal relations between quantity tropes falling under determinates and determinables. We begin by providing a novel characterization of the necessary relations between these tropes as basic internal relations. The core ideas here are that the existence of the relata is sufficient for their being internally related, and that their being related does not require the existence of any specific entities distinct from the relata. We argue that quantity tropes are, as determinate (...) particular natures, internally related by certain relations of proportion and order. By being determined by the nature of tropes, the relations of proportion and order remain invariant in conventional choice of unit for any quantity and give rise to natural divisions among tropes. As a consequence, tropes fall under distinct determinables and determinates. Our conception provides an accurate account of quantitative distances between tropes but avoids commitment to determinable universals. In this important respect, it compares favorably with the standard conception taking exact similarity and quantitative distances as primitive internal relations. Moreover, we argue for the superiority of our approach in comparison with two additional recent accounts of the similarity of quantity tropes. (shrink)

This paper is the first trope-theoretical reply to E. J. Lowe’s serious dilemma against trope nominalism in print. The first horn of this dilemma is that if tropes are identity dependent on substances, a vicious circularity threatens trope theories because they must admit that substances are identity dependent on their constituent tropes. According to the second horn, if the trope theorist claims that tropes are identity independent, she faces two insurmountable difficulties. (1) It is hard to understand the ontological dependence (...) of tropes on substances. (2) The identity-conditions of tropes cannot be determinate, which threatens the determination of the identity-conditions of substances. Our reply to the first horn of Lowe’s dilemma is to deny the identity dependence of tropes. Yet we can avoid the second horn because our theory can explain the ontological dependence of tropes on substances and the fully-determined identity-conditions of both tropes and substances. (shrink)