This collection of papers explores one of the central debates in the field of bioethics in the new century. It evaluates the controversy between the claim that there is a common morality accepted by all and the opposing view that there are different moral visions and moral rationalities, within which complex bioethical issues demand a solution. Contributions within this volume offer different approaches and perspectives on the pursuit of global ethics in the new century. They are organized under five major (...) themes. The first theme explores the different plausible understandings of the foundations of bioethics and contemporary reflections on the nature and role of moral theory. The second theme analyses the impact of moral loss and moral diversity on the character of bioethics and the search for alternative perspectives in post-traditional and post-modern societies. The third theme examines a number of theoretical issues raised by concrete examples of bioethnological applications, which bear importantly on contemporary debates between the possibility and impossibility of global bioethics. The fourth theme discusses examples of moral conflicts and dilemmas in everyday health care practice regarding the permissible treatment of humans by humans under different ethical perspectives and cultural traditions. The fifth theme explores alternative suggestions for opening up new modes of self-understanding and new strategies for bioethical exploration in the new century. The volume is an important work of reference for philosophers, moral theologians, ethicists, counsellors, doctors, nurses, sociologists, journalists, health care professionals, public policy makers and everyone who is interested in the profound ethical issues arising from modern technological advancements which are not only transforming our lives but are also demanding urgent ethical decision-making and `pragmatic' solutions from a cross-cultural perspective. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to sketch out two contrasting notions of freedom in the Zhuangzi and the Xunzi . I argue that to understand the classical Chinese formulations of freedom we should look at the concept of hua 化 (transformation or to transform). It is a kind of freedom that highlights the moral and/or spiritual transformation of the self and its entailments on the connection between the self and various domains of relationality. The Zhuangzian hua is the transformation of (...) the self in such a way that the self becomes supremely attuned to the complexity of the world and can thus navigate various domains of relationality with extraordinary grace, ease, and efficacy. The Xunzian hua is the transformation of the self so that the self can extend its relationality to include the entire world and transform it from a raw and uncouth world to a civilized one through ritual practices. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the Hong Kong approach to consent regarding the forgoing of life-sustaining treatment for incompetent elderly patients. It analyzes the contextualized approach in the Hong Kong process-based, consensus-building model, in contrast to other role-based models which emphasize the establishment of a system of formal laws and a clear locus of decisional authority.Without embracing relativism, the paper argues that the Hong Kong model offers an instructive example of how strategic ambiguities can both make good sense within particular cultural context (...) and serve important moral goals. (shrink)

A consideration of Confucian ethics as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance.

The article studies knowledge in multiagent systems where data available to the agents may have small errors. To reason about such uncertain knowledge, a formal semantics is introduced in which indistinguishability relations, commonly used in the semantics for epistemic logic S5, are replaced with metrics to capture how much two epistemic worlds are different from an agent’s point of view. The main result is a logical system sound and complete with respect to the proposed semantics.

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the contrast in views between traditional mainstream Chinese philosophy and Western liberal individualism on the importance of the concept of individual rights in social and political thought. The contrast is striking because, whereas individual and political rights have long featured in public discourse in the West, in China, mainstream social and political thought has developed without a notion of individual rights. In search of the significance of this major difference, the paper traces ideas of (...) the self in China through Confucian ethics, and compares the Confucian conception of the self with the deontological liberal conception of the subject as a bearer of rights in the West. Having established that the Chinese way of thinking about the self and about moral agency is in stark contrast to the image of the self as a bearer of rights in the deontological conception, the paper goes on to discuss the inadequacy of the moral individualism of a rights‐based morality and argues for an alternative view of morality which places importance on the intrinsic value of collective goods and on membership in a society. (shrink)

This essay aims to provide a philosophical analysis of the Chinese concept of cheng (sincerity) as a political virtue that could be incorporated to ground a duty of civility in liberal deliberative democracy. It is argued here that the virtue of sincerity is an essential feature of the liberal political culture taken for granted by Rawls in his theory of public reason. Ideal procedures and public discourse are not sufficient to generate civic virtues. The goal of this essay is to (...) show how, in the Chinese conception, the root of civility lies in the virtue of Cheng, which can provide the moral grounding for a duty of civility that is essential to sustaining the stability and overcoming the problem of defection from support of the common good in pluralistic states. (shrink)

Based on empirical data from a qualitative study, this paper explores the complexity of ‘real world’ management in Hong Kong’s public sector, as contrasted with various paradigmatic claims under ‘new public management’ (NPM). A plurality of sub-worlds within the broad public sector is identified, which makes the management roles and responsibilities much less ‘homogenised’ than depicted in NPM exhortations. The instrumental rationality underpinning NPM is identified as too restrictive in understanding the way in which public managers reach decisions. When the (...) daily challenges of reconciling values and practices arising from the complexities of politics, policies and service delivery are considered it is necessary to incorporate ideas related to procedural and expressive rationality to fully appreciate the nature of management in public organisations. (shrink)

: This essay aims to provide a philosophical analysis of the Chinese concept of cheng (sincerity) as a political virtue that could be incorporated to ground a duty of civility in liberal deliberative democracy. It is argued here that the virtue of sincerity is an essential feature of the liberal political culture taken for granted by Rawls in his theory of public reason. Ideal procedures and public discourse are not sufficient to generate civic virtues. The goal of this essay is (...) to show how, in the Chinese conception, the root of civility lies in the virtue of Cheng, which can provide the moral grounding for a duty of civility that is essential to sustaining the stability and overcoming the problem of defection from support of the common good in pluralistic states. (shrink)

Harmony has become a major challenge for modern governance in the twenty-first century because of the multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character of our increasingly globalized societies. Governments all over the world are facing growing pressure to integrate the many diverse elements and subcultures which make up modern pluralistic societies. This book examines the idea of harmony, and its place in politics and governance, both in theory and practice, in Asia, the West and elsewhere. It explores and analyses the meanings, mechanisms, (...) dimensions and methodologies of harmony as a normative political ideal in both Western and Asian philosophical traditions. The book argues that in Western political thought - which sees politics as primarily concerned with resolving social conflicts and protecting individual rights - the concept of harmony has often been neglected. In contrast, since earliest times harmony or ‘he’ has been a profound theme in Confucian thought, and current leaders of many East Asian governments, and the Chinese government, have explicitly declared that the realisation of a harmonious society is their aim. The book also assesses how harmony is pursued, jeopardized or deformed in the real world of politics, based upon empirical analysis of a variety of different cultural, social and political contexts, including: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Denmark, Latin America and the Scandinavian countries. It shows how harmony as an organizing concept can help to promote new thinking in governance, and overcome problems of modern-day governance like distrust, adversarial conflicts, hyper-individualism, coercive state intervention, and free-market alienation. It also discusses the potential problems posed by the pursuit of harmony, in particular in the grave threat of totalitarianism, and considers how these risks could best be mitigated. (shrink)

陇者甘肃，历史悠久，文化醇厚。陇上学人，或生于斯长于斯的本地学者，或外来而其学术成就多产于甘肃者。学人是学术活动的主体，就《陇上学人文存》（以下简称《文存》）的选编范围而言，我们这里所说的学术主要指人 文社会科学研究。《文存》精选中华人民共和国成立以来，甘肃人文社会科学领域成就卓著的专家学者的代表性著作，每人辑为一卷，或标时代之识，或为学问之精，或开风气之先，或补学科之白，均编者以为足以存当代而传后 世之作。《文存》力求以此丛集荟萃的方式，全面立体地展示新中国为甘肃学术文化发展提供的良好环境和陇上学人不负新时代期望而为我国人文社会科学事业做出的新贡献，也力求呈现陇上学人所接续的先秦以来颇具地域特色 的学根文脉。.

A consideration of Confucian ethics as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance.

Previously published studies have reported that 150 min of short-term monocular deprivation temporarily changes perceptual eye dominance. However, the possible mechanisms underlying monocular deprivation-induced perceptual eye dominance plasticity remain unclear. Using a binocular phase and contrast co-measurement task and a multi-pathway contrast-gain control model, we studied the effect of 150 min of monocular pattern deprivation in normal adult subjects. The perceived phase and contrast varied significantly with the interocular contrast ratio, and after MPD, the patched eye became dominant. Most importantly, (...) we focused on the potential mechanisms of the deprivation effect. The data of an averaged subject was best fitted by a model, which assumed a monocular signal enhancement of the PE after the MPD. The present findings might have important implications for investigations of binocular vision in both normal and amblyopic populations. (shrink)

本书主要内容包括:战争价值问题的提出;战争价值思想的历史发展;战争价值主体;战争价值的本质及特点;战争价值诸表现形式;战争价值评价等。.

本书主要内容包括:战争价值问题的提出;战争价值思想的历史发展;战争价值主体;战争价值的本质及特点;战争价值诸表现形式;战争价值评价等。.