This paper explores the meaning of the Confucian concept of Cheng as a philosophical proposition for facilitating publicity and justice according to ethical best practice. Cheng is interpreted as a guide for teleological judgement and a moral prescript for cultivation that provides orientation for becoming a Junzi, an “accomplished person”. It can also serve to describe a form of proper behavior indicating a moral character. In particular, Cheng interconnects and qualifies all internal and external acts in relation to Ren and (...) Yi. It represents the interface between intentionality and practice in view of the subject individual concerned with introspective self-attention Shen qi du and publicity and justice in view of her/his role in society, facilitated through the functional and performative requirements of Cheng. Thus, it can be accommodated with a maxim ethics that expressly requires publicity and justice as indicators for acceptability. (shrink)

: In the past five years, China has experienced increased efforts to regulate activities in biomedical research and practice. Background is provided on some of the key developments in Chinese bioethics especially in relation to genetics, stem cells, cloning, and reproductive medicine. This background sets the stage for a document entitled "Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryo Stem Cell Research," proposed by the Bioethics Committee of the Southern China National Human Gene Research Center, Shanghai, which is reprinted in this volume of (...) the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. (shrink)

Since our visual perception of physical things essentially involves our identifying objects by their colours, any theory of visual perception must contain some account of the colours of things. The central problem with colour has to do with relating our normal, everyday colour perceptions to what science, i.e. physics, teaches us about physical objects and their qualities. Although we perceive colours as categorical surface properties of things, colour perceptions are explained by introducing physical properties like reflectance profiles or dispositions to (...) cause certain experiences in normal human perceivers. Hence, it seems as if colours as they are experienced by us have no place in the physical world, because they are fundamentally different from the properties which we ascribe to physical objects in scientific accounts of colour perceptions. This special issue on perspectives on colour perception presents new suggestions to solve to this major problem. (shrink)