I investigate the underlying cognitive mechanisms and socio-emotional factors behind conspiracy theory (CT) beliefs through the lens of the Free-Energy Principle (FEP). The FEP framework is employed to explain the emergence of CTs in the face of cumulative uncertainties and the influence of emotions on belief formation. The FEP account I propose concludes that considering emotional factors, distrust of established authorities, and the social environment, believing in CTs is a bounded rational choice for some individuals in certain contexts. This explains (...) why CT believers are resistant to changing their views. Applying FEP to the complex human behavior of CT belief and propagation, this paper not only provides insights into the phenomenon but also enhances the theoretical credence of FEP itself. (shrink)

This article aims at showing the need for a sound ethical and anthropological foundation of economics and business, and argues the importance of a correct understanding of human values and human nature for the sake of economics and of businesses themselves. It is suggested that the ethical-anthropological side of economics and business can be grasped by taking Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Amartya Sen’s capability approach (CA) as major reference points. We hold that an “Aristotelian economics of virtues”, connected with the (...) CA’s notion of human richness, can promote the shift to the concept of personhood, and can lead to a more “humanized” business, by fostering human flourishing, the enhancement of human capabilities, and the pursuit of a more humane development for each and every person. (shrink)

Purpose The role of entrepreneurship as a major engine for innovation, economic growth and job creation has made policymakers argue for infusing entrepreneurship into all levels of education. It is argued that citizens must develop their entrepreneurial skills in order to cope with our increasingly globalized, fast-paced and uncertain world. Making the leap of faith from entrepreneurship into education is however rife with challenges and failures. Most attempts have resulted in isolated initiatives impacting only a small number of interested students (...) on higher levels of education. Common challenges to wider adoption are lack of definitional clarity around what exactly signifies “entrepreneurial” education, impeding organizational structures, lack of resources, assessment difficulties and fear of capitalism. To address these challenges, the purpose of this thesis is to articulate and qualify a tentatively new educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship, allowing teachers to use value creation as a stepping stone between entrepreneurship and education when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. Result An educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship has been defined in this thesis as letting students learn through creating value for others, giving teachers prescriptive advice on what, how and why issues in education. This is inherently entrepreneurial in its reliance on a widespread view of entrepreneurship as being about new value creation for others and constituted by a set of teachable entrepreneurial methods. The resulting process is rich with interaction between people and triggers a multitude of emotional learning events, allowing for more engaged students and deeper learning of entrepreneurial as well as subject specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. Method The tentatively new educational philosophy proposed here was developed through an abductive five-year action research process of constant iterations between theory and practice. A total of nine empirical studies on all levels of education were drawn from, involving a few hundred primary, secondary, tertiary and continuing education teachers, around 2000 students and around 100 different educational institutions in three European countries. Two main action research cycles were conducted, each spanning 3-4 years in time. Theory from entrepreneurship and education guided the research, as well as theory from fields such as psychology, philosophy, anthropology, economics and methodology. A number of methodological developments were made in the research process, such as a new “proxy” theory of assessing entrepreneurial education, a mobile app based experience sampling informed interview technique and analytical frameworks for key emotional events and entrepreneurial competencies. Novelty This is the first attempt that has been made to propose an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Questions explored in order to qualify it included why educational philosophy is important when infusing entrepreneurship into education and what is new with an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Compared to existing educational philosophies such as traditional, progressive and experiential education, it can contribute with a purposeful movement between often unconnected and opposing philosophical positions rather than being yet another flag on the philosophical playing field of education. Whether this makes it an entirely new educational philosophy or merely a novel combination of established ones remains to be determined. Limitations Some important challenges and limitations with the proposed educational philosophy have emerged. It could be viewed as too excluding to view entrepreneurial education as being solely about education that includes value creation attempts. Asking students to focus on knowledge that can be useful for others could also be viewed as an overly utilitarian emphasis. The interdisciplinary challenge of bridging the two very different scholarly fields of education and entrepreneurship was also shown to be significant. It remains to be seen whether value creation as a stepping stone will allow scholars and practitioners to keep their feet dry when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. (shrink)

Rather than ask if expertise is under threat, this paper uses case studies to show how expertise is enabled. Its appearance can be traced to how the already known evokes sensibility, judging, thinking and languaging. As defined below, it draws on epistemic cycles. Using Secchi and Cowley’s (2021) 3M model, this posits a second cut between the micro and the macro. In the mesosphere, people create temporary domains or what William James (1991) calls ‘little worlds’. Within these corpora popularia, the (...) new is made possible – expertise sets off unimagined outcomes. Thus, many concerns cannot be solved by scientific correlates of a natural ontological attitude: indeed, the truism clarifies many social challenges. We lack social institutions that dedicate expertise to goals like ecosocial justice and life-sustaining relations. Once the necessary expertise is traced to epistemic cycles, we can demand of institutions that they create bodies that seek to bring a rich future to evolution. (shrink)

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under high degrees of uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misidentification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-making in mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers with a total of 22,304 years of foraging experience, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging. It illustrates how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary principles to (...) deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers leverage both simple heuristics and complex cognitive strategies in their search for, and identification of, mushrooms. Foragers also develop selective attention through experience. The results invite us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used fast and frugal heuristics to deal with uncertainty. (shrink)

The notion of bounded rationality has recently gained considerable popularity in the behavioural and social sciences. This article surveys the different usages of the term, in particular the way ‘anomalosus’ behavioural phenomena are elicited, how these phenomena are incorporated in model building, and what sort of new theories of behaviour have been developed to account for bounded rationality in choice and in deliberation. It also discusses the normative relevance of bounded rationality, in particular as a justifier of non‐standard reasoning and (...) deliberation heuristics. For each of these usages, the overview discusses the central methodological problems. (shrink)

This paper offers a characterization and critique of the idea of bounded rationality and its consequences for public policy. It offers an alternative way of accounting for the crucial features of human rationality that bounded rationality sees, using categories inspired by the Reformational philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd and others, and then shows how this alternative account of the “bounds” of human rationality points toward an alternative orientation toward public policy-making.

This paper argues that corporate governance reformers in Anglo-American jurisdictions should consider a different approach in their quest for better corporate governance. Traditionally, corporate governance reform has taken a structural approach, tightening the rules around the number of independent directors required on boards and committees and fine-tuning the definition of independence. However, such an approach has failed to achieve effective corporate governance. Moreover, this approach is informed by the arguably discredited assumption that individuals are rational self-interest utility maximizers. This conceptual (...) paper questions why corporate governance scholars and regulators remain uncritical of this assumption and suggests an approach to reform inspired by a different view of human nature. Indeed, incorporating an actor-based approach to reform into existing structures may better achieve effective corporate governance while addressing an unjustified adherence to this flawed assumption. (shrink)

Many proponents of deliberative democracy expect reasonable citizens to engage in rational argumentation. However, this expectation runs up against findings by behavioral economists and social psychologists revealing the extent to which normal cognitive functions are influenced by bounded rationality. Individuals regularly utilize an array of biases in the process of making decisions, which inhibits our argumentative capacities by adversely affecting our ability and willingness to be self-critical and to give due consideration to others’ interests. Although these biases cannot be overcome, (...) I draw on scientifically corroborated insights offered by Adam Smith to show that they can be kept in check if certain affective and cognitive capacities are cultivated. Smith provides a compelling account of how to foster sympathetic, impartial, and projective role-taking in the process of interacting with others, which can greatly enhance our capacity and willingness to critically assess our own interests and fairly consider those of others. (shrink)

Psychological observations are by now well integrated into economics, especially in the theory of finance, as can also be seen in the Nobel Prize awarded to Thaler. On the contrary, Simon’s attempt to reforge economic theory on the paradigm of bounded rationality failed. Starting from the birth of the neoclassical paradigm, we’ll describe the attempt to give it psychological foundations with a direct measurement of utility, then the axiomatic turn of the paradigm and its first anomalies. We’ll then sum up (...) the debate on rationality, taking place in the group of economists led by Simon, which brought to the rational expectations hypothesis. Finally, we’ll discuss the development of behavioral economics and its progressive acceptance in economic theory. This historical reconstruction allows us to understand the actual hard core of the neoclassical paradigm and the growing need of the paradigm for practical flexibility that determines how to choose arguments, methods and evidence that can be useful to its development, including psychological ones. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with adaptive learning and coordination processes. Implementing agent-based modeling techniques (Learning Classifier Systems, LCS), we focus on the twofold impact of cognitive and environmental complexity on learning and coordination. Within this framework, we introduce the notion of Adaptive Learning Agent with Rule-based Memory (ALARM), which is a particular class of Artificial Adaptive Agent (AAA, Holland and Miller 1991). We show that equilibrium is approached to a high degree, but never perfectly reached. We also demonstrate that memorization (...) and learning capacities depend upon the relative discordance between the cognitive complexity of agents' mental models and the degree of stability of the environment. (shrink)

Despite the expansion of the regulatory state, we continue to witness widespread unethical practices across society. This paper addresses these challenges of ethical failure, misalignment, and dissonance by developing a conceptual framework that provides an explicit basis for understanding virtuousness and the common good directed toward the goal of eudaimonia or human flourishing. While much of the literature on virtuousness has focused on the organization, this paper uses a more comprehensive understanding that also incorporates the agent and the economy examined (...) through their relational order. The common good provides direction for guiding behavior of all the various stakeholders and the context for understanding virtuousness, while it is through virtuousness that the common good is effectively realized. Virtuousness and the common good are therefore in effect ‘two sides of the same coin.’ This paper develops a virtuousness–common good conceptual framework which explores the basis for harmonizing the goals of the individual, organization, and the economy. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine the actor-network economic sociology of disability with recent developments in phenomenological, embodied cognitive science, to discuss how ability, calculative agency, and meaning are distributed throughout materially situated sociocognitive systems. I begin by outlining the actor-network approach to disability, market formation, and economic agency. Next, I turn to the cognitive sciences, and describe the emergence of consciousness and meaning in embodied human being. With an operative synthesis of the two projects in place, I turn to government-organized (...) disability savings plans in Canada. I suggest that the low uptake of these plans can be explained using the theoretical synthesis provided in the first two sections of this paper, giving a robust account of the threefold distribution of ability, calculative agency, and meaning. (shrink)

Notwithstanding empirical evidence that combining ethics and compliance into one function or programme is likely to erode an ethical culture in organisations, the praxis to coalesce ethics and compliance conceptually and structurally remains attractive and continues in many organisations. Drawing on systems psychodynamic theory, this study enquires into unconscious complexities and drivers that may contribute to adverse consequences when combining ethics and compliance. Whereas previous research demonstrates that compliance dominates ethics because of self‐regulation issues, this research provides deeper insight into (...) why this happens. On explicating the unconscious dynamics that underlie the apparent lure of combination, it becomes clear that this praxis remains attractive because of its function to repress anxieties, maintain phantasies, and provide psychological comfort. In recognising the role of unconscious dynamics in the decision to combine ethics and compliance and the consequences thereof, cognition of this combination and its outcomes is moved beyond a conscious rational process. This elucidates the commanding opposing unconscious forces potentially at play in this decision. Insights could lessen adverse outcomes by prompting organisations to think of the combination of ethics and compliance as unconsciously motivated systemic processes that require sincere consideration before pursuing them. (shrink)

“Rationality” in Simon's “bounded rationality” is the principle that humans make decisions on the basis of step-by-step reasoning using systematic rules of logic to maximize utility. “Bounded rationality” is the observation that the ability of a human brain to handle algorithmic complexity and large quantities of data is limited. Bounded rationality, in other words, treats a decision maker as a machine carrying out computations with limited resources. Under the principle of embodied cognition, a cognitive mind is an interactive machine. Turing-Church (...) computations are not interactive, and interactive machines can accomplish things that no Turing-Church computation can accomplish. Hence, if “rationality” is computation, and “bounded rationality” is computation with limited complexity, then “embodied bounded rationality” is both more limited than computation and more powerful. By embracing interaction, embodied bounded rationality can accomplish things that Turing-Church computation alone cannot. Deep neural networks, which have led to a revolution in artificial intelligence, are both interactive and not fundamentally algorithmic. Hence, their ability to mimic some cognitive capabilities far better than prior algorithmic techniques based on symbol manipulation provides empirical evidence for the principle of embodied bounded rationality. (shrink)

In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal of research (...) programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research. -/- The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics. (shrink)

Most theories of justice rest on the idea that emotions need to be contained or set aside and that rationality serves as the best, if not exclusive, criterion for identifying the principles of a fair distribution. In recent years, however, two important claims have been made. One is that rationality and emotions are not in conflict with one another, but should be conceived of as strictly interconnected; the other is that social justice is not just about distribution, but also – (...) or especially – about social relations. This paper aims to bridge these claims and argues that (a) the role of emotions should be recognised by theories of justice, as it is compatible with the importance such theories attribute to rationality, and (b) an inquiry into emotions is particularly important to investigate the socio-relational dimension of justice. Moreover, the paper claims that (c) in order to adequately investigate the role of emotions in social justice, it is important to acknowledge that emotions are structurally mediated and shaped by powerful transformative forces, among which technologies – especially so-called socially disruptive technologies (SDTs) – prove to be particularly relevant. The paper argues that SDTs have a fundamental role in shaping social relations, shared commitments, and the emotions that follow from them or enable them. (shrink)