In the realistic world, various individuals have distinct personalities, preferences, and attitudes toward new information and behavior acceptance, called population heterogeneity. It is seldom taken into account and theoretically analyzed in information propagation on a weighted network. Therefore, we divide individuals into fashionable and conservative individuals according to their passion degree and willingness for novel behaviors acceptance. Then, we build two behavior adoption threshold models corresponding to fashionable and conservative individuals on the weighted network to explore the effect of population (...) heterogeneity on information propagation. Next, a partition theory based on edge weight and population heterogeneity is proposed to qualitatively analyze the information propagation mechanism. The theoretical analyses and simulation results show that fashionable individuals promote information propagation and behavior adoption. More importantly, the crossover phenomena of phase transition appear. When the fraction of fashionable individuals is relatively large, the increasing pattern of the final adoption size shows a second-order continuous phase transition. In comparison, the increasing pattern alters to first-order discontinuous phase transition with the decrease of the fraction of fashionable individuals. Moreover, reducing weight distribution heterogeneity promotes information propagation and slightly accelerates the change of the phase transition pattern from the first-order discontinuous to the second-order continuous. Besides, increasing the degree distribution heterogeneity accelerates the change of the phase transition pattern. Finally, our theoretical analyses coincide well with the simulation results. (shrink)

The rise in the recent Western pattern of surrogate decision making is not a necessary result of an increase in the number of elderly with decreased competence; it may rather manifest the dominant Western vision of human life and relations. From a comparative philosophical standpoint, the Western pattern of medical decision making is individualistic, while the Chinese is familistic. These two distinct patterns may reflect two different comprehensive perspectives on human life and relations, disclosing a foundational difference that can be (...) seen in the Aristotelian account of friendship and the Confucian account of humanity. The contemporary development of surrogate decision making in the West may illustrate a general tendency toward the Aristotelian account, while the Chinese approaches are congruent with the Confucian view. Also explored are some merits of the Chinese approach to family decision making for health care. (shrink)

Across the world, socio-economic forces are shifting the locus of long-term care from the family to institutional settings, producing significant moral, not just financial costs. This essay explores these costs and the distortions in the role of the family they involve. These reflections offer grounds for critically questioning the extent to which moral concerns regarding long-term care in Hong Kong and in mainland China are the same as those voiced in the United States, although family resemblances surely exist. Chinese moral (...) values such as virtue and filial piety embedded in a Confucian moral and social context cannot be recast without distortion in terms of modern Western European notions. The essay concludes that the Confucian resources must be taken seriously in order to develop an authentic Chinese bioethics of long-term care and a defensible approach to long-term care policy for contemporary society in general and Chinese society in particular. (shrink)

Intuitionistic dependence logic was introduced by Abramsky and Väänänen [1] as a variant of dependence logic under a general construction of Hodges’ (trump) team semantics. It was proven that there is a translation from intuitionistic dependence logic sentences into second order logic sentences. In this paper, we prove that the other direction is also true, therefore intuitionistic dependence logic is equivalent to second order logic on the level of sentences.

Drawing upon Confucian ethical insights extracted from the Analects, this essay argues that principlism suffers from fundamental theoretical flaws. Its four principles do not genuinely capture universal principles, because they distort the practice-embedded nature of authentic moral norms found within actual moral cultures, as elucidated by Confucian insights. Specifically, Confucianism highlights the importance of a reflective equilibrium between constitutive rules and regulative principles. Principlism, in reality, represents an abridged version of modern Western liberal ethical norms, as it retains their significant (...) regulative principles while excluding their specific constitutive rules. The essay also employs prominent examples to illustrate the practical ineffectiveness of principlism. Given that diverse cultures either adhere to different regulative principles that diverge from the four principles or are obligated to specify them with their distinct constitutive rules, relying on the four principles as a uniform starting point falls short in providing and justifying universal solutions to the bioethical dilemmas confronting contemporary societies. In addition, the essay delves into the underlying factors that have led to the seemingly widespread adoption of the four principles across different regions worldwide. Lastly, the essay introduces the concept of regioglobal bioethics as an alternative to principlism for global bioethics, outlining a general Confucian endorsement of this proposal and providing a brief response to potential objections, aiming to pave the way for further research. (shrink)

The graph tong同and its associated concepts, such as da-tong (Great tong大同) and xuan-tong (mystic or dark tong玄同), have played important roles in the development of Chinese philosophy. Yet tong has received scant attention from either western or eastern scholarships. This paper is a first attempt to remedy such regret. Unlike usual understandings of tong as sameness or unity, this paper presents a nuanced account from early China, that is, ‘difference to one,’ a definition from the Mozi墨子. This definition can be (...) supported from etymological, textual, and lexical evidence. ‘Difference to one’ should not be solely attributed to a Mohist understanding; it in fact represents a common understanding of tong across philosophical streams in early China. This nuanced account provides new insights into the concept of tong in early philosophical texts, and furthermore breaks solid grounds for further studies of tong and its associated concepts. (shrink)

Any counterfactual with a true antecedent and a true consequent is invariably predicted to be true by the standard Stalnaker–Lewis semantics. But many such true–true counterfactuals appear false to ordinary speakers, which is considered by many authors as evidence that the standard semantics should be revised. However, Walters and Williams prove that allowing true–true counterfactuals to be false would unacceptably invalidate some very plausible logical principles. The objective of this paper is to provide a pragmatic account of seemingly false true–true (...) counterfactuals, which explains why such counterfactuals seem false to ordinary speakers while being true semantically. In particular, a pluralistic pragmatic account is pursued: I argue that some true–trues seem false because they conversationally implicate some falsehood, and some others seem false because the focus (intonation stress) involved in them invokes some pragmatic re‐interpretation that affects speakers' truth‐value judgments. (shrink)

: This paper argues that three salient corrupt practices that mark contemporary Chinese health care, namely the over-prescription of indicated drugs, the prescription of more expensive forms of medication and more expensive diagnostic work-ups than needed, and illegal cash payments to physicians—i.e., red packages—result not from the introduction of the market to China, but from two clusters of circumstances. First, there has been a loss of the Confucian appreciation of the proper role of financial reward for good health care. Second, (...) misguided governmental policies have distorted the behavior of physicians and hospitals. The distorting policies include (1) setting very low salaries for physicians, (2) providing bonuses to physicians and profits to hospitals from the excessive prescription of drugs and the use of more expensive drugs and unnecessary expensive diagnostic procedures, and (3) prohibiting payments by patients to physicians for higher quality care. The latter problem is complicated by policies that do not allow the use of governmental insurance and funds from medical savings accounts in private hospitals as well as other policies that fail to create a level playing field for both private and government hospitals. The corrupt practices currently characterizing Chinese health care will require not only abolishing the distorting governmental policies but also drawing on Confucian moral resources to establish a rightly directed appreciation of the proper place of financial reward in the practice of medicine. (shrink)

Parental participation has gained significant attention in environmental psychology, which has revealed a need for an instrument that can measure parental participation with children regarding environmental issues. The present study met this need by validating the parental participation in the environment scale. This process began with 45 Chinese parents participating in an individual interview and group discussions, which helped generate a list of eighteen parent-child environmental activities. The activities were then modified and validated in the current study with a diverse (...) group of 969 parents recruited from six major Chinese cities. Both score structure evidence and generalizability evidence were obtained within this sample, and psychometric tests suggested a single factor construct with nine items. Once the PPE scale was revised, it showed measurement invariance across the parent who responded to the items, across the child’s primary caregiver, across the family’s living region, as well as across the family’s income group. Finally, evidence based on relations to other variables showed a relationship among parents’ PPE, pro-environmental behavior, and connectedness with nature. As a result, the study provided a novel measure to assess pro-environmental socialization via parental participation. (shrink)

Truth-telling to competent patients is widely affirmed as a cardinal moral and biomedical obligation in contemporary Western medical practice. In contrast, Chinese medical ethics remains committed to hiding the truth as well as to lying when necessary to achieve the family's view of the best interests of the patient. This essay intends to provide an account of the framing commitments that would both justify physician deception and have it function in a way authentically grounded in the familist moral concerns of (...) Confucianism. It reflects on the moral conditions and possibilities for sustaining a Confucian understanding of truth-telling and consent in mainland China. (shrink)

In this article, I offer an abridged reconstruction of the foundational elements of Confucian moral commitments, which, I will argue, still provide the background moral substance for moral reflection in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea. The essay presents implications of Confucianism for establishing an appropriate health care system and critically assesses the features of current health polices in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The goal is to offer a family-oriented, non-individualist account of resource allocation that takes (...) family authority and responsibility seriously. (shrink)

Xuantong 玄同 (tentatively translated as dark oneness) is a unique Daoist idea that represents an ideally mental and physical state as a result of cultivation. However, owing to limited context in the Laozi, there is no consensus on the interpretation of xuantong. Contemporary studies have also neglected xuantong’s evolution in early texts and assumed a homogeneous understanding, and hence, failed to provide a nuanced account. In this article, I investigate how xuantong evolves from the Guodian Laozi to the Huainanzi and (...) Wenzi. I argue that although xuantong may originate from the Laozi, it is in the Wenzi that a coherent theory of xuantong is accomplished. This theory advocates an orderly process of cultivation that covers internal mental states, external acts, and integration with the whole universe. The cultivation would eventually lead people to adopt an undifferentiated perspective on, and reach oneness with, all things in the universe. (shrink)

This essay explores a proper Confucian vision on genetic enhancement. It argues that while Confucians can accept a formal starting point that Michael Sandel proposes in his ethics of giftedness, namely, that children should be taken as gifts, Confucians cannot adopt his generalist strategy. The essay provides a Confucian full ethics of giftedness by addressing a series of relevant questions, such as what kind of gifts children are, where the gifts are from, in which way they are given, and for (...) what purpose they are given. It indicates that Confucians should sort out different types of enhancement and bring them to the test of the Confucian values in terms of both Confucian virtue principles and specific ritual rules. It concludes that Confucians can accept some types of enhancement but must reject others. (shrink)

Stephan Darwall (2006, 2010) claims that a conceptual connection exists between moral obligation and what he calls ‘second-personal reasons.’ In particular, he (2006) claims that, “moral obligation is an irreducibly second-personal concept. That an action would violate a moral obligation is…a second-personal reason not to do it.” A second-personal reason, according to him (2006), is “a distinctive kind of (normative) reason for acting,” a reason made on one’s will and purportedly given by an authority’s demand or address. This paper argues (...) that Darwall fails to establish the above conceptual connection between second-personal reasons and moral obligation. Since Darwall’s construal of the second-person standpoint is original and the best known version, if I am right, then it seems that there is no conceptual connection between second-personal reasons and moral obligations. The implication is that second-personal reasons at best account for only interpersonal morality. (shrink)

The ‘Wu xing’ belongs to Guodian bamboo slips texts, which were buried around 300 BCE and excavated in 1993. Its relation with Mengzi is widely investigated. Yet how it is philosophically related to Xunzi receives little attention. In this article, I illustrate a neglected relation between ‘Wu xing’ and Xunzi, by elucidating how shan 善 (goodness) is first raised in ‘Wu xing’ and developed by Xunzi into a concrete idea. Both ‘Wu xing’ and Xunzi propose that shan exists in action, (...) which boils down to the harmonious unity of the mind and body, and to secure the ideal relation between the mind and body requires constant learning and practicing, particularly, of rituals. Learning and practicing not only lead one to realize shan, but eventually to become a consummate practitioner of rituals, to use Xunzi’s words, to become a sage. (shrink)

This paper takes the book named “ Thinking About Technology: the Foundations of the Philosophy of Technology” as the starting point of analysis. This book was published in 2000. we will summarize the primary idea of Joseph Pitt about Philosophy of Technology, and the debate about this book, analyze the “Phenomenon of Pitt”, that is the echo to the thought of Joseph Pitt on Philosophy of Technology. We point out at last, we should pay attention to the study on the (...) foundation of Philosophy of Technology and the institutional development of philosophy of technology. (shrink)

本书内容包括:STS与东亚国家的工业化、城市化和国际化;STS与中国东北老工业基地改造和振兴的战略与对策;科学技术与文化;文化背景中的创新:科技创新、制度创新、管理创新和体制创新等问题;其他STS研究 的基本理论与现实问题。.

Ecological consciousness in traditional Chinese culture is a very important thought resource in the process of constructing ‘a postmodern worldview’.

Ecological consciousness in traditional Chinese culture is a very important thought resource in the process of constructing ‘a postmodern worldview’.

This volume explores Confucian views regarding the human body, health, virtue, suffering, suicide, euthanasia, `human drugs,' human experimentation, and justice in health care distribution. These views are rooted in Confucian metaphysical, cosmological, and moral convictions, which stand in contrast to modern Western liberal perspectives in a number of important ways. In the contemporary world, a wide variety of different moral traditions flourish; there is real moral diversity. Given this circumstance, difficult and even painful ethical conflicts often occur between the East (...) and the West with regard to the issues of life, birth, reproduction, and death. The essays in this volume analyze the ways in which Confucian bioethics can clarify important moral concepts, provide arguments, and offer ethical guidance. The volume should be of interest to both general readers coming afresh to the study of bioethics, ethics, and Confucianism, as well as for philosophers, ethicists, and other scholars already familiar with the subject. (shrink)

Just as nothingness is a fundamental concept in Daoist philosophy, it is also a fundamental concept in Chinese aesthetics, where it has multiple meanings: First, nothingness, as a reaction against unaesthetic psychical activity, is a primary precondition of aesthetic and artistic activity. Second, as the void or intangible stuff juxtaposed to substance, it is an indispensable compositional property of artworks as well as an essential condition for the manifestation of an artistic form. Finally, as a reaction against the unaesthetic world (...) of daily life—the experiential world—nothingness is the fundamental basis and essential provision for establishing an artistic world. (shrink)

As the representative of Chinese classical works, the Analects represents a source of difficulty in both understanding and interpretation of Confucian philosophy. Confucian philosophy as a philosophy of creativity and otherness is closely related with the social and cultural values in society. Therefore, the study of Confucian philosophy in the Analects cannot be separated from the descriptive study of the effects of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, contexts, language use, and the effects of language use (...) on society. This article attempts to explore how the meaning of Confucian philosophy in the Analects is interpreted and accepted by Western readers through complex social semiotic interactions. The article focuses on the interpretation of Confucian philosophy as a reflection of cultural assumptions, values and prohibitions, and the manipulation of the social semiotic resources in the process of understanding, translation, and acceptance of Confucian philosophy in the Analects through a discussion of its original text, different versions and the reasons behind the social semiotic activities. The article concludes with a consideration of significant social semiotic interactions that influence the translator’s interpretation and reader’s acceptance of Confucian philosophy so as to facilitate intercultural understanding. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effects of goal orientations and self-efficacy between competitive cognitive anxiety and motor performance under conditions featuring different levels of ego-threat. Eighty-one collegiate-level basketball players completed Sport Competitive Anxiety Test, Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire, and General Self-Efficacy Scale prior to the experiment. Athletes participated in two sessions of free-throw tasks. After the first session, which was under a control condition, participants performed in a free-throw competitive session while being provided opponents’ (...) scores that induced different levels of competitive cognitive anxiety. Performance is defined as the accuracy in two free-throw sessions. A hierarchical multiple regression showed that high level of task-orientation and low level of ego-orientation can buffer the impairment of competitive cognitive anxiety on motor performance. The relationship between competitive cognitive anxiety and motor performance did not vary with self-efficacy. An a repeated-measured analysis of covariance after cluster analysis revealed that a high-task/low-ego profile benefited athletes the most regarding the impairment of competitive cognitive anxiety. Together, ego- and task-orientations and “goal profile” moderate the relationship between competitive cognitive anxiety and motor performance; however, self-efficacy may not serve as a moderator variable in between. (shrink)

Xuantong 玄同 (tentatively translated as dark oneness) is a unique Daoist idea that represents an ideally mental and physical state as a result of cultivation. However, owing to limited context in the Laozi, there is no consensus on the interpretation of xuantong. Contemporary studies have also neglected xuantong’s evolution in early texts and assumed a homogeneous understanding, and hence, failed to provide a nuanced account. In this article, I investigate how xuantong evolves from the Guodian Laozi to the Huainanzi and (...) Wenzi. I argue that although xuantong may originate from the Laozi, it is in the Wenzi that a coherent theory of xuantong is accomplished. This theory advocates an orderly process of cultivation that covers internal mental states, external acts, and integration with the whole universe. The cultivation would eventually lead people to adopt an undifferentiated perspective on, and reach oneness with, all things in the universe. (shrink)

As a non-dualistic but holistic and harmonious way of thinking, Chinese Yin-Yang Thinking can make great contributions to the contemporary dialogue between science and religion, especially in its emphasis on interdependence, mutual complementarity, and mutual transformation. It can help us understand the complex and multifaceted relationship between science and religion, and provides a middle way to move beyond the impasse between scientism and religious fundamentalism. This paper explores the following three contributions that Yin-Yang Thinking can make to the contemporary dialogue (...) between science and religion: 1. Yin-Yang Thinking can help deconstruct the dichotomy between science and religion by showing the interpenetration between them; 2. Yin-Yang Thinking can help promote synergy between science and religion by showing how they can complement and learn from each other; 3. Yin-Yang Thinking can help establish a partnership between science and religion in order to create an ecological civilization. The paper also explores the question of why such a valuable philosophical concept has been suppressed in China for almost a century. (shrink)

The Second Enlightenment is a deep reflection and an immanent transcendence of the first Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries). Although the great achievements of the first Enlightenment cannot be denied, its limits are increasingly being exposed. Among the many limitations of the Enlightenment, the suppression of beauty in general and natural beauty in particular is one of its main drawbacks, caused by its blind worship of reason and the domination of a modern mechanistic worldview. The suppression of beauty and natural (...) beauty has produced destructive consequences which are responsible for the ecological, social, and spiritual crisis facing us today. In order to prevent ecological catastrophes and create an ecological civilization, a second Enlightenment whose core concept is beauty is needed. The Second Enlightenment challenges us to rethink the value and importance of beauty and natural beauty, and regards beauty as the aim of the universe, as well as of ecological civilization. In this sense, the Second Enlightenment can be seen as an aesthetic Enlightenment which not only helps us to resist consumerism, guard spiritual dignity, nurture our souls, find a sense of belonging, and lead a poetic life, but also helps Chinese society to overcome a defiant attitude toward rural civilization and farmers, and eventually to remove the Great Wall between city and country. (shrink)

It is generally recognized that China, while attempting to develop modern scientific medicine in carrying out its national policy for modernization, has also made significant efforts to integrate traditional Chinese medicine into its health care system. For instance, the World Health Organization's first global strategy on traditional and alternative medicine lists China as one of only four of its member states to have attained an integrative health care system. However, medical integration can take many different forms and involve quite different (...) health care standards. A health care standard is a set of mechanisms by which distinct diagnostic and therapeutic practices and products are validated or accredited for use in health care delivery. Traditional Chinese medicine and modern scientific medicine adopt different sets of such mechanisms and thereby engage different health care standards. Accordingly, in appraising the Chinese integrative health care system, it is important to investigate which health care standard has been appealed to. (shrink)

Is guanxi ethical? This question is largely ignored in the existing literature. This paper examines the ethical dimension of guanxi by focusing on the consequences of guanxi in business, from ethically misgiving behaviour to outright corruption. Guanxi may bring benefits to individuals as well as the organisations they represent but these benefits are obtained at the expenses of other individuals or firms and thus detrimental to the society. As guanxi has an impact on the wider public other than the guanxi (...) parties, it must be studied in the context of all stakeholders. It can be argued that guanxi is an inevitable evil under the current political and socio-economic systems in China. Its role and importance in business life will be diminished as the country moves towards an open market system. (shrink)

The family is the exemplar community of Chinese society. This essay explores how Chinese communitarian norms, expressed in thick commitments to the authority and autonomy of the family, are central to contemporary Chinese bioethics. In particular, it focuses on the issue of surrogate decision making to illustrate the Confucian family-grounded communitarian bioethics. The essay first describes the way in which the family, in Chinese bioethics, functions as a whole to provide consent for significant medical and surgical interventions when a patient (...) has lost decision-making capacity. It is argued that the practice of not having an established order for surrogate decision makers (e.g., spouse, children, and then parents), as it is done in the United States, reflects the acknowledgment that the family as a social reality cannot be reduced to a stereotype of the appropriate order of default decision makers. This description of the family as being in authority to make surrogate decisions for an incompetent family member is enriched by an elaboration of the differences among the concepts of patient autonomy, family autonomy, and moral autonomy. The Chinese model, as well as the Confucian communitarian life of families, engages a family autonomy that is supported by a Confucian understanding of moral autonomy, rather than individual autonomy. Finally, the issue of possible conflicts between patient and family interests in relation to a patient’s past wishes in the Chinese model is addressed in light of the role of the physician. (shrink)

While the precipitous decline of biodiversity threatens life-sustaining processes and vast segments of the human population, concern about its loss remains extremely shallow. Nearly all motivational campaigns falsely assume that upon appreciating the relevant information, people will be sufficiently motivated to do something. But rational argumentation is doomed to fail, for there exists a motivational gap between a comprehension of the crisis and action taken based upon such knowledge. The origin of the gap lies neither in the quantity and quality (...) of information on the crisis, nor in the putative conflict between self-interest and morality. Instead, it lies in “remoteness conditions” which dissociate decision-makers from ecological damage and enfeeble incentive to correct it. The central remoteness conditions are spatial, temporal, and consequential. They can be eliminated by concretizing and particularizing earth others. While direct-experience, place-based educational programs satisfy the criteria, they are uncommon. There is also little opportunity for working adultsto engage in these sorts of activities. As such, the outlook for endangered species and humans in the developing world remains dire. (shrink)