Essays in Philosophical Moral Psychology

The dissertation consists of four essays and a comprehensive introduction that discusses the topics, methods, and most prominent theories of philosophical moral psychology. I distinguish three main questions: What are the essential features of moral thinking? What are the psychological conditions of moral responsibility? And finally, what are the consequences of empirical facts about human nature to normative ethics? Each of the three last articles focuses on one of these issues. The first essay and part of the introduction are dedicated to methodological questions, in particular the relationship between empirical (social) psychology and philosophy. I reject recent attempts to understand the nature of morality on the basis of empirical research. One characteristic feature of moral thinking is its practical clout: if we regard an action as morally wrong, we either refrain from doing it even against our desires and interests, or else feel shame or guilt. Moral views seem to have a conceptual connection to motivation and emotions – roughly speaking, we can’t conceive of someone genuinely disapproving an action, but nonetheless doing it without any inner motivational conflict or regret. This conceptual thesis in moral psychology is called (judgment) internalism. It implies, among other things, that psychopaths cannot make moral judgments to the extent that they are incapable of corresponding motivation and emotion, even if they might say largely the words we would expect. Is internalism true? Recently, there has been an explosion of interest in so-called experimental philosophy, which is a methodological view according to which claims about conceptual truths that appeal to our intuitions should be tested by way of surveys presented to ordinary language users. One experimental result is that the majority of people are willing to grant that psychopaths make moral judgments, which challenges internalism. In the first article, ‘The Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy’, I argue that these results pose no real threat to internalism, since experimental philosophy is based on a too simple conception of the relationship between language use and concepts. Only the reactions of competent users in pragmatically neutral and otherwise conducive circumstances yield evidence about conceptual truths, and such robust intuitions remain inaccessible to surveys for reasons of principle. The epistemology of folk concepts must still be based on Socratic dialogue and critical reflection, whose character and authority I discuss at the end of the paper. The internal connection between moral judgment and motivation led many metaethicists in the past century to believe along Humean lines that judgment itself consists in a pro-attitude rather than a belief. This expressivist view, as it is called these days, has far-reaching consequences in metaethics. In the second essay I argue that perhaps the most sophisticated form of contemporary expressivism, Allan Gibbard’s norm-expressivism, according to which moral judgments are decisions or contingency plans, is implausible from the perspective of the theory of action. In certain circumstances it is possible to think that something is morally required of one without deciding to do so. Morality is not a matter of the will. Instead, I sketch on the basis of Robert Brandom’s inferentialist semantics a weak form of judgment internalism, according to which the content of moral judgment is determined by a commitment to a particular kind of practical reasoning. The last two essays in the dissertation emphasize the role of mutual recognition in the development and maintenance of responsible and autonomous moral agency. I defend a compatibilist view of autonomy, according to which agents who are unable to recognize right and wrong or act accordingly are not responsible for their actions – it is not fair to praise or blame them, since they lacked the relevant capacity to do otherwise. Conversely, autonomy demands an ability to recognize reasons and act on them. But as a long tradition in German moral philosophy whose best-known contemporary representative is Axel Honneth has it, both being aware of reasons and acting on them requires also the right sort of higher-order attitudes toward the self. Without self-respect and self-confidence we remain at the mercy of external pressures, even if we have the necessary normative competence. These attitudes toward the self, in turn, are formed through mutual recognition – we value ourselves when those who we value value us. Thus, standing in the right sort of relations of recognition is indirectly necessary for autonomy and moral responsibility. Recognition and valuing are concretely manifest in actions and institutions, whose practices make possible participation on an equal footing. Seeing this opens the way for a kind of normative social criticism that is grounded in the value of freedom and automomy, but is not limited to defending negative rights. It thus offers a new way to bridge the gap between liberalism and communitarianism.

Food biotechnologies in Italy: a social psychological study

This dissertation presents an analysis of the representations of food biotechnologies in Italy. The thesis uses the analysis of discourse to illustrate the articulated ways in which representations are instantiated in different contexts. The theoretical thrust of the work resides in its discussion of the basic tenets of both Social Representations Theory and Discursive Psychology. The thesis offers a detailed description of the two frameworks; affinities and difference are highlighted, and a serious effort is made to develop an integrated set of theoretical resources to answer the research questions. The thesis proposes to combine a discursive methodology with Social Representations Theory. After a description of the relevant legislative framework follows an illustration of the categories used for the textual analysis. The study proposes the textual analysis of the following data: the first declaration issued by a small Italian council rejecting biotechnologies; four texts which focus on positions taken by the Catholic Church in the matter of food biotechnologies; several transcripts from a public debate in a small community of the north west of Italy. The latter study, which included an ethnographic dimension, focuses on recordings from interviews, a focus group, a public meeting and newspaper articles. Particular attention is paid to ideological representations and to the relevance of citizenship and governance to debates about food biotechnologies.

What should I think; How should I feel? : The balancing of personal experiences and social norms in the outgroup attitude formation of youth

The present study focused on the associations between the personal experiences of intergroup contact, perceived social norms and the outgroup attitudes of Finnish majority and Russian-speaking minority youth living in Finland. The theoretical background of the study was derived from Allport s (1954) theory of intergroup contact (i.e., the contact hypothesis), social psychological research on normative influences on outgroup attitudes (e.g., Rutland, 2004; Stangor and Leary, 2006) and developmental psychological research on the formation of explicit (deliberate) and implicit (automatically activated) outgroup attitudes in adolescence (e.g., Barrett, 2007; Killen, McGlothlin and Henning, 2008). The main objective of the study was to shed light on the role of perceived social norms in the formation of outgroup attitudes among adolescents. First, the study showed that perceived normative pressure to hold positive attitudes towards immigrants regulated the relationship between the explicit and implicit expression of outgroup attitudes among majority youth. Second, perceived social norms concerning outgroup attitudes (i.e., the perceived outgroup attitudes of parents and peers) affected the relationship between intergroup contact and explicit outgroup attitudes depending on gender and group status. Positive social norms seem to be especially important for majority boys, who need both pleasant contact experiences and normative support to develop outgroup attitudes that are as positive as girls attitudes. The role of social norms is accentuated also among minority youth, who, contrary to majority youth with their more powerful and independent status position, need to reflect upon their attitudes and experiences of negative intergroup encounters in relation to the experiences and attitudes of their ingroup members. Third, the results are indicative of the independent effects of social norms and intergroup anxiety on outgroup attitudes: the effect of perceived social norms on the outgroup attitudes of youth seems to be at least as strong as the effect of intergroup anxiety. Finally, it was shown that youth evaluate intergroup contact from the viewpoint of their ingroup and society as a whole, not just based on their own experiences. In conclusion, the outgroup attitudes of youth are formed in a close relationship with their social environment. On the basis of this study, the importance of perceived social norms for research on intergroup contact effects among youth cannot be overlooked. Positive normative influences have the potential to break the strong link between rare and/or negative personal contact experiences and negative outgroup attitudes, and norms also influence the relationship between implicit and explicit attitude expression.

Constructing and negotiating entrepreneurial agency : A social psychological approach to entrepreneurship discourse in the farm context

Entrepreneurship, understood as the autonomous, effective pursuit of opportunities regardless of resources, is currently subject to a multitude of interests, expectations, and facilitation efforts. On the one hand, such entrepreneurial agency has broad appeal to individuals in Western market democracies and resonates with their longing for an autonomous, personally tailored, meaningful, and materially rewarding way of life. On the other hand, entrepreneurship represents a tempting and increasingly popular means of governance and policy making, and thus a model for the re-organization of a variety of societal sectors. This study focuses on the diffusion and reception of entrepreneurship discourse in the context of farming and agriculture, where pressures to adopt entrepreneurial orientations have been increasingly pronounced while, on the other hand, the context of farming has historically enjoyed state protection and adhered to principles that seem at odds with aspects of individualistic entrepreneurship discourse . The study presents an interpretation of the psychologically and politically appealing uses of the notion of entrepreneurial agency , reviews the historical and political background of the current situation of farming and agriculture with regard to entrepreneurship, and examines their relationships in four empirical studies. The study follows and develops a social psychological, situated relational approach that guides the qualitative analyses and interpretations of the empirical studies. Interviews with agents from the farm sector aim to stimulate evaluative responses and comments on the idea of entrepreneurship on farms. Analysis of the interview talk, in turn, detects the variety of evaluative responses and argumentative contexts with which the interviewees relate themselves to the entrepreneurship discourse and adopt, use, resist, or reject it. The study shows that despite the pressures towards entrepreneurialism, the diffusion of entrepreneurship discourse and the construction of entrepreneurial agency in farm context encounter many obstacles. These obstacles can be variably related to aspects dealing with the individual agent, the action situation, the characteristics of the action itself, or to the broader social, institutional and cultural context. Many aspects of entrepreneurial agency, such as autonomy, personal initiative and achievement orientation, are nevertheless familiar to farmers and are eagerly related to one s own farming activities. The idea of entrepreneurship is thus rarely rejected outright. The findings highlight the relational and situational preconditions for the construction of entrepreneurial agency in the farm context: When agents demonstrate entrepreneurial agency, they do so by drawing on available and accessed relational resources characteristic of their action context. Likewise, when agents fail or are reluctant to demonstrate entrepreneurial agency, they nevertheless actively account for their situation and demonstrate personal agency by drawing on the relational resources available to them.

The Art of Sympathy : Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion in Fiction

"The Art of Sympathy: Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion" in Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that looks closely at the ways that stories evoke sympathy, and the significance of this emotion for the development of moral attitudes and awareness. By linking readers' emotional responses to fiction with the potential impact of such responses on "the moral imagination," the study builds on empirical research conducted by literary scholars and psychologists into the emotional effects of reading fiction, as well as social psychological research into the connections between empathy/sympathy and moral development. I first investigate the dynamics of readers beliefs regarding characters in fictional narratives, and the nature of the emotions that they may experience as a result of those beliefs. The analysis demonstrates that there are important similarities between real emotions and emotions generated by fiction. Recognizing these similarities, I claim, can help us to conceptualize the nature of sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Building on these assertions, I then draw on research from social psychology and philosophy to develop a comprehensive definition of sympathy and to clarify the ways in which sympathy operates, both in people s daily lives and in readers sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Having established this definition and delineated its practical implications, I then examine how particular stories, through a variety of narrative techniques, persuade readers to feel sympathy for characters who are unsympathetic in certain ways. In order to verify my claims about the impact of these stories on readers emotions, I also review the results of tests that I conducted with nearly 200 adolescent readers. Through these tests, which were constructed and scored according to methods prevalent in social psychological research, it was determined that a majority of readers felt sympathy for the protagonists in two of the stories included in the study. These results were combined with data from an additional test, a standard measure of empathy and sympathy in the field of social psychology. The cross-tabulation of these results suggests that there was not a strong connection between readers responses and their general tendencies to feel sympathy for others. This finding would appear to support my hypotheses regarding the sympathetic persuasiveness of the stories in question. In light of these results, finally, I consider the potential contribution that fiction can make to adolescent emotional and moral development and the implications of that potential for future language arts curricula in the schools. In particular, I suggest the pedagogical importance of providing adolescents with opportunities to engage with the lives of fictional characters, and especially to experience feelings of sympathy for individuals towards whom they ordinarily might feel aversion.

Changes in Beer Labels and their Meaning : A Holistic Approach to the Semiosic Process

The purpose of this study is to find a framework for a holistic approach to, and form a conceptual toolbox for, investigating changes in signs and in their interpretation. Charles S. Peirce s theory of signs in a communicative perspective is taken as a basis for the framework. The concern directing the study is the problem of a missing framework in analysing signs of visual artefacts from a holistic perspective as well as that of the missing conceptual tools. To discover the possibility of such a holistic approach to semiosic processes and to form a conceptual toolbox the following issues are discussed: i) how the many Objects with two aspects involved in Peirce s definition of sign-action, promote multiple semiosis arising from the same sign by the same Interpretant depending on the domination of the Objects; ii) in which way can the relation of the individual and society or group be made more apparent in the construction of the self since this construction is intertwined with the process of meaning-creation and interpretation; iii) how to account for the fundamental role of emotions in semiosis, and the relation of emotions with the often neglected topic of embodiment; iv) how to take into account the dynamic, mediating and processual nature of sign-action in analysing and understanding the changes in signs and in the interpretation of signs. An interdisciplinary approach is chosen for this dissertation. Concepts that developed within social psychology, developmental psychology, neurosciences and semiotics, are discussed. The common aspect of the approaches is that they in one way or another concentrate on mediation provided by signs in explaining human activity and cognition. The holistic approach and conceptual toolbox found are employed in a case study. This consists of an analysis of beer brands including a comparison of brands from two different cultures. It becomes clear that different theories and approaches have mutual affinities and do complement each other. In addition, the affinities in different disciplines somewhat provide credence to the various views. From the combined approach described, it becomes apparent that by the semiosic process, the emerging semiotic self intertwined with the Umwelt, including emotions, can be described. Seeing the interpretation and meaning-making through semiosis allows for the analysis of groups, taking into account the embodied and emotional component. It is concluded that emotions have a crucial role in all human activity, including so-called reflective thinking, and that emotions and embodiment should be consciously taken into account in analysing signs, the interpretation, and in changes of signs and interpretations from both the social and individual level. The analysis of the beer labels expresses well the intertwined nature of the relationship between signs, individual consumers and society. Many direct influences from society on the label design are found, and also some indirect attitude changes that become apparent from magazines, company reports, etc. In addition, the analysis brings up the issues of the unifying tendency of the visual artefacts of different cultures, but also demonstrates that the visual artefacts are able to hold the local signs and meanings, and sometimes are able to represent the local meanings although the signs have changed in the unifying process.

Yhteisöllisyys voimavarana yliopisto-opetuksen ja -opiskelun kehittämisessä

A sense of community as a resource for developing university teaching and learning The aim of this doctoral research was to determine how a sense of community can be a resource for developing university teaching and learning. The theoretical background is linked to social sciences, social psychology, university pedagogy and educational sciences. The thesis is comprised of two separate studies. Study I consisted of an action research project in which a model of cooperatively developing a teaching and learning culture was created and tested. The focus of study I was the university pedagogy programme of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. The results demonstrated that the theoretical framework and the methods of cooperative learning provide useful tools for developing an academic learning and teaching culture. The approach helps to create a benevolent learning atmosphere. The cooperative learning culture used in the action research project reflected the traditional academic learning culture and also caused a collision between the two cultures. The aim of study II was to determine how Open University students and Bachelor’s degree students experience their teaching-learning environment and the importance of the learning community and peer support to their studies. The results indicated that, with the exception of support from other students, the Open University students experienced their teaching-learning environments on average more positively than the Bachelor’s degree students. According to the Open University students, their own motivation and interest was the most important factor that enhanced studying. Furthermore, the most common factors delaying their studies were their life situation and a lack of time. The sense of community and social relations mainly promoted studying. Open University students experienced that they were supported by their teachers, tutors, other students, the working community, family and hobbies. The research demonstrated that the methods that make good use of communal resources are negotiation of shared goals and rules, working in various small groups, emphasis on shared and individual responsibilities and assessment of the product and the process of learning. The resources of the academic community can be developed if the members of the community develop, in addition to the communal working methods, their communal sensitivity. In other words, they should have an understanding of social psychological and sociological concepts that they can use for observing communal phenomena.

Nuorten arvot ja tietoyhteiskunta-asenteet

The aim of this study was to explore the sociocultural value orientations of Finnish adolescents and their attitudes toward information society. In addition, this study explored the association between values and attitudes toward information society. I investigated whether values and attitudes follow social development and whether they can be divided into value categories such as traditional, modern and postmodern. This study falls into the category of youth research. The study uses a multimethodological approach and straddles the following disciplines: the science of education, religious education, sociology and social psychology. The theoretical context of the study is modernisation, understood as a two level process. The first level represents the transition from a religious-based traditional society to a modern industrial society. The second level of modernisation refers to the process of development established after the second world war, called postmodernisation, which is understood as the transition from an emphasis on economical imperatives to an emphasis on subjective well-being and the quality of life. Postmodernisation influences both social organisations and individuals´ values and worldviews. The target group of this survey-study comprised 408 16- to 19-year-old Finnish adolescent students from secondary school and vocational school. The data were gathered with a quantitative questionnaire during the second half of 2001. The results of the study can be generalised to the population of Finnish 16- to 19-year-olds. The data were analysed quantitatively using ANOVA and multivariate analyses such as cluster analysis, factor analysis and general linear modeling. Bayesian dependence modeling served to explore further how the values predict the attitudes toward information society. The results indicate that values are associated not only with attitudes toward information society, but with many other sociocultural indicator as well. Especially strong interpreting indicators included gender and identity or lifestyle questions. The results also indicate an association between values, attitudes and social development and a two-level modernisation process. Values formed traditional, modern and postmodern value systems. Keywords: values, attitudes, modernisation, information society, traditional, modern, postmodern

Growing Up Vietnamese in Finland - Looking Back 12 Years Later : The Well-Being and Sociocultural Adaptation of Vietnamese as Children or Adolescents and as Young Adults

Varttuminen vietnamilaisena Suomessa: 12 vuoden seurantajakso – Vietnamilaisten hyvinvointi ja sosiokulttuurinen sopeutuminen lapsena/nuorena sekä nuorena aikuisena Tämä tutkimus oli määrällinen pitkittäistutkimus lapsena tai nuorena vuosina 1979-1991 Suomeen saapuneiden vietnamilaisten akkulturaatiosta (kulttuurin muutoksista), psyykkisestä hyvinvoinnista ja sosiokulttuurisesta sopeutumisesta. Tutkimukseen osallistui ensimmäisessä vaiheessa (vuonna 1992) 97 satunnaisesti valittua vietnamilaista peruskoululaista ympäri maata, joita verrattin suomalaisiin luokkatovereihin. Seurantavaiheeseen (vuonna 2004) osallistui 59 ensimmäisessä vaiheessa mukana ollutta vietnamilaista, nyt iältään 20 – 31 -vuotiaita. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää mitkä tekijät ennustivat akkulturaation lopputuloksia, samalla huomioiden iän ja ympäristön (kontekstin) vaikutukset psyykkiseen hyvinvointiin ja sosiokulttuuriseen sopeutumiseen. Yksittäiset akkulturaatiodimensiot (kieli, arvot ja identiteetti) osoittautuivat tärkeämmiksi psyykkiselle hyvinvoinnille ja sosiokulttuuriselle sopeutumiselle kuin etniset, kansalliset tai kaksikulttuuriset profiilit, joissa yhdistyivät ao. kieli, arvot ja identiteetti. Identiteettimuutosta tapahtui (etniseen) vietnamilaiseen suuntaan ajan kuluessa, kun taas arvomuutosta tapahtui (kansalliseen) suomalaiseen suuntaan. Sekä suomen että vietnamin kielen taito lisääntyivät ajan myötä, millä oli myönteisiä vaikutuksia sekä psyykkiseen hyvinvointiin että sosiokulttuuriseen sopeutumiseen. Lähtötilanteen psyykkinen hyvinvointi ennusti hyvinvointia (masennuksen puutetta ja itsetuntoa) aikuisena, mutta sosiokulttuurinen sopeutuminen (koulumenestys) lapsena tai nuorena ei ennustanut kouluttautumista aikuisena. Parempi suomen kielen taito ja vähemmän identifioitumista suomalaiseksi aikuisena sekä masentuneisuuden puute ja vähemmän koettua syrjintää lapsena tai nuorena erottelivat psyykkisesti paremmin voivat aikuiset (ei-masentuneet) heistä, jotka olivat masentuneita. Parempaa kouluttautumista aikuisena ennustivat toisaalta vähemmän koettua syrjintää lapsena tai nuorena ja toisaalta aikuisena parempi suomen kielen taito, suurempi kansallisten (suomalaisten) itsenäisyysarvojen kannattaminen, mutta kuitenkin vähemmän identifioitumista suomalaisiin. Koetun syrjinnän merkitys psyykkiselle hyvinvoinnille, erityisesti lapsena tai nuorena, sekä sen pitkäaikaisvaikutukset psyykkiselle hyvinvoinnille ja sosiokulttuuriselle sopeutumiselle aikuisena osoittavat tarpeen puuttua varhain psyykkisiin ongelmiin sekä parantaa etnisten ryhmien välisiä suhteita. Avainsanat: akkulturaatio, psyykkinen hyvinvointi, sosiokultuurinen sopeutuminen, kieli, arvot, identiteetti, vietnamilainen, Suomi, lapset, nuoret, nuoret aikuiset

Opettajien teknologiasuhteen luonne ja muodostuminen

This study investigates primary and secondary school teachers’ social representations and ways to conceptualise new technologies. The focus is both on teachers’ descriptions, interpretations and conceptions of technology and on the adoption and formation of these conceptions. In addition, the purpose of this study is to analyse how the national objectives of the information society and the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools reflect teachers’ thinking and everyday practices. The starting point for the study is the idea of a dynamic and mutual relationship between teachers and technology so that technology does not affect one-sidedly teachers’ thinking. This relationship is described in this study as the teachers’ technology relationship. This concept emphasises that technology cannot be separated from society, social relations and the context where it is used but it is intertwined with societal practices and is therefore formed in interaction with the material and social factors. The theoretical part of this study encompasses three different research traditions: 1) the social shaping of technology, 2) research on how schools and teachers use technology and 3) social representations theory. The study was part of the Helmi Project (Holistic development of e-Learning and business models) in 2001–2005 at the Helsinki University of Technology, SimLab research unit. The Helmi Project focused on different aspects of the utilisation of ICT in teaching. The research data consisted of interviews of teachers and principals. Altogether 37 interviews were conducted in 2003 and 2004 in six different primary and secondary schools in Espoo, Finland. The data was analysed applying grounded theory. The results showed that the teachers’ technology relationship was diverse and context specific. Technology was interpreted differently depending on the context: the teachers’ technology related descriptions and metaphors illustrated on one hand the benefits and the possibilities and on the other hand the problems and threats of different technologies. The dualist nature of technology was also expressed in the teachers’ thinking about technology as a deterministic and irrevocable force and as a controllable and functional tool at the same time. Teachers did not consider technology as having a stable character but they interpreted technology in relation to the variable context of use. This way they positioned or anchored technology into their everyday practices. The study also analysed the formation of the teachers’ technology relationship and the ways teachers familiarise themselves with new technologies. Comparison of different technologies as well as technology related metaphors turned out to be significant in forming the technology relationship. Also the ways teachers described the familiarisation process and the interpretations of their own technical skills affected the formation of technology relationship. In addition, teachers defined technology together with other teachers, and the discussions reflected teachers’ interpretations and descriptions.

Yrittäjyyden arvottaminen akateemisten nuorten argumentoinnissa

Evaluation of entrepreneurship in the speech of academic students and newly qualified young academics a summary of a qualitative attitude study. In Finland very few university students plan to become entrepreneurs. The aim of this research was to examine entrepreneurial attitudes expressed in speech. The material was gathered from interviews with university students and newly qualified young academic adults. The interviewees commented on twelve different sentences with claims formulated using research literature and views that have appeared in public discussions. The interviewees were divided into three different groups based on their self-expressed entrepreneurial intentions. The method of qualitative attitude research (Vesala & Rantanen 1999, 2007) was used in the interviews. The research material was studied using two interpretative theories: (1) The planned behaviour theory (Ajzen 1985, 1991a, b), which makes it possible to focus on the separate elements (attitude towards an act, subjective norms and perceived feasibility) necessary for intentions to develop; and (2) The theory of the two images of entrepreneurship (Vesala 1996), where individualism and relationism can be seen as resources for evaluating entrepreneurship. The subject of the research was how university students and newly qualified young adults viewed entrepreneurship as a general phenomen and in relation to the academic world. A second focus was on the attitudes expressed toward entrepreneurial university education and the possibility of combining entrepreneurship and academic knowledge. Of interest were also questions such as whether academic studies, knowledge and the university itself are resources or barriers to entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurship whether university students received any support for their entrepreneurial ambitions from the university and their fellow academic students. The problems tackled by this research were thus the following: How was entrepreneurship seen, both as a general phenomen and in an academic context, when it was evaluated positively, negatively or neutrally by the interviewees? In what way was entrepreneurship constructed in the interviewees attitudes? How were entrepreneurship and the academic world related in the interviewees attitudes? What kind of role did the university as an academic context play in the interviewees attitudes for example were university education and academic knowledge seen as resources or barriers to their entrepreneurial intentions. Traditional attitude studies claim that attitudes are a stable property of an individual. In contrast, rhetorical social psychological and qualitative attitude studies emphasize the contextual and linguistic aspects of attitude, and they offered an alternative viewpoint for this research. The study was based on two general assumptions: attitudes have objects and are evaluative. Here attitude was defined as an evaluative interpresentation made towards an object; adopting an attitude is a contextual process in the sense that attitudes are always concerned with the action context of the persons presenting them. Entrepreneurship, both as a general phenomen and in an academic context, was specified as the object to which an attitude was taken. From a theoretical point of view, qualitative methods suited the general structure of this research well. In a particular, qualitative approach which emphasized contextual elements proved to be both empirically valid and useful for avoiding the problematic assumptions associated with traditional attitude study. The subject of the analysis was the argumentative speech produced by the interviewees. The results of the study show the subjects responses to three main ways of viewing entrepreneurships. The first was an individualistic, ideal image of entrepreneurship. This was mostly evaluated positively and gained wide approval especially among interviewees who included entrepreneurship among their employment choices. Entrepreneurship was seen as the decision to earn one s living independently. In this individualistic image of entrepreneurship, the social context was hardly ever mentioned. Elements which were seen to threaten this ideal image were evaluated negatively. When entrepreneurship was evaluated negatively using the individualistic image of entrepreneurship, it was mentioned that it forced one into a never ending cycle of work and uninterested duties. The relationistic image of entrepreneurship was used as a speech resource when the social context was constructed as an economic resource or a threat to the ideal image of entrepreneurship. In the second view, entrepreneurship was characteristically seen as being based on economics, which was seen as a threat to the ideal individualistic image of entrepreneurship. The risk of economic failure was seen as a limiting factor to entrepreneurial ambitions as it forced entrepreneurs to work around the clock. The third view concerned the relationship between entrepreneurship and the academic world. Entrepreneurship as an employment choice for university educated persons was evaluated as relevant, and thus positively, when university education was constructed as a resource for entrepreneurship - and irrelevant and thus negatively when it was construed as an obstacle, too wide, or when successful entrepreneurship was seen as being mostly based on an individual s personal characteristics. The interviewees with no entrepreneurial intentions expressed the view that academic education didn t provide the proper skills and knowledge for entrepreneurship. The interviewees also expressed interest in university entrepreneurship education, although none had experience on this. The interviewees emphasized the fact that the University didn t encourage them to consider entrepreneurship as a relevant employment choice. The assumption made by this study was that becoming an entrepreneur is a conscious decision, the environment may influence an individual s decisions on how to make a living as it tends to socialise people to act in accordance with cultural traditions. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Attitudes towards entrepreneurship, Intentional behaviour, Entrepreneurial intention, University entrepreneurship education, Qualitative attitude research (Vesala & Rantanen 1999, 2007), Rhetorical social psychology (Billig 1986), The theory of entrepreneuship s two images: individualism and relationism (Vesala 1996 ), The planned behaviour theory (Ajzen 1985, 1991a, b)