This issue of Chinese Studies in Philosophy contains two translations of the contemporary Chinese thinker Liu Xiaobo: "A Dialog with Li Zehou—The Sensate, The Individual, My Choice" and "Unavoidable Reflection—Contemplating Stories on Intellectuals." The first originally appeared in Zhongguo, No. 10 . Since then it has been modified by Liu and republished as a book under the title A Critique of Choice Taipei: Troubled Times Publishers , 1989. I have used the original magazine version of the text for my translation. (...) The second article was originally published in Zhongguo, No. 4. (shrink)

Li Zehou and Vera Schwarcz argue that key political events in twentieth century Chinese intellectual history, like the May Fourth Movement, separate one generation of intellectuals from the next.1 I have also frequently heard contemporary Mainland intellectuals speak of generational differences among themselves. In lectures, Liu Binyan often contrasts the idealism and suffering of his generation with the disillusionment of the younger group of intellectuals and writers that grew up during the Cultural Revolution. This notion of generation seems to distinguish (...) between an older group and a younger and unproven one. The relationship between these successive generations has taken a variety of forms, but one can also argue that it has two paradigms. On the one hand, there is a relationship based on the idea of continuity, on the idea that a pupil from the younger generation obediently carries on a tradition or school of thought his older master inherited or created. The best example of this master-disciple relationship is Confucius's relationship to his followers. This idea also has strong familial overtones, and can be seen in the stress Confucian texts give to the bond between father and son, and to the values that underlie this bond: the notions of xiao, or filial piety, and zhong, or loyalty. This idea of chuan or transmission from one generation to the next is a strong element in sinicized religions like Chan Buddhism. Transmission of an idea, or even a family name, is a value informing many aspects of life in late imperial society. Mary Rankin and Hilary Beattie's work on family lineages shows how local elites used all the financial, cultural, and political means available to them to preserve the elite status of their extended families over several hundred years.2 Education, provided by teachers in local village and lineage schools, was the key to transmitting and inculcating these ethical values of loyalty, obedience, filial piety, and ethical behavior. The values informing this intergenerational relationship obligated the teacher to act in a morally conscious way, but also gave him power over his pupils, who were taught to obediently follow him. (shrink)

In this essay, Liu Xiaobo has chosen to wrestle with some of the more famous pieces of "scar literature." This body of texts from the post-Mao period attempted to comprehend the horrendous experiences that intellectuals endured during the Cultural Revolution. To Liu, however, these works, rather than coming to terms with that chaotic event, have simply replicated the "traditional feudal ideology" that he sees as its cause. One of the central features of this "feudal tradition" that can be found in (...) Classical literary and philosophical texts is an idealized image of intellectuals, an image that, he believes, continues to this day to stifle both literature and the intelligensia. The traditional intellectual, or more accurately the scholar-official, aspired to be a sage, but by attempting to make himself into a moral and social exemplar, and conform to this model, he repressed his own individuality and critical facilities. The intellectuals presented in the texts Liu discusses conform to this precedent. They are, in his terms, "human deities" : the epitome of selflessness and diligence, idealized stereotypes rather than feeling, thinking human beings. This aspect of the "feudal tradition," Liu believes, has also stifled Classical and contemporary literature. It has meant that characters, rather than being strong individuals, conform to models and stereotypes, and that Chinese literature approaches subjects like the Cultural Revolution uncritically. (shrink)

Drawing from a four-year study of US science institutions that support biological control of arthropods, this article examines the decline in biological control institutional capacity in California within the context of both declining public interest science and declining agricultural research activism. After explaining how debates over the public interest character of biological control science have shaped institutions in California, we use scientometric methods to assess the present status and trends in biological control programs within both the University of California Land (...) Grant System and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We present available data on the number of scientific positions and the types of positions to discuss the impact on the amount of public interest research on biological control in California. We use sociograms to depict how biological control science networks have been reconfigured over time. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that the following factors contributed to the decline of biological control science in California over the 45-year period analyzed: (1) the institutional reconfiguration of university research priorities; (2) the fraying networks within and increasing specialization of biological control science; (3) the transformation of the social organization of the life science work, including privatization; and (4) the abandonment of this thematic area by civil society activist groups. This broad array of forces suggests that biological control, as a public interest science, will require a deliberate intervention, based on advocacy of clear public interest criteria. (shrink)

a comprehensive, somewhat Gricean theory of speech acts, including an account of communicative intentions and inferences, a taxonomy of speech acts, and coverage of many topics in pragmatics -/- .

In recent years, several formalisms for program construction have appeared. One such formalism is the type theory developed by Per Martin-L f. Well suited as a theory for program construction, it makes possible the expression of both specifications and programs within the same formalism. Furthermore, the proof rules can be used to derive a correct program from a specification as well as to verify that a given program has a certain property. This book contains a thorough introduction to type theory, (...) with information on polymorphic sets, subsets, monomorphic sets, and a full set of helpful examples. (shrink)

Objectives: To test the range of beliefs regarding the ethics of testing, in resource poor settings, new therapies that are less efficacious but more affordable and feasible than the best current therapeutic standard. Design: Using a web-based survey, we presented a hypothetical scenario proposing to test a therapy for HIV disease ("therapeutic inoculation") known to be less efficacious than highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Respondents evaluated various trial designs as ethical or unethical. Participants: 604 subscribers to two listservs for individuals (...) interested in international health research ethics. Main outcome measures: Proportion of respondents endorsing trials testing this "substandard" therapy, and proportion endorsing placebo-controlled trials. Results: There were 215 respondents from 47 countries. Forty-five percent of respondents were from low or middle income countries; 96% devoted at least some time to research activities; and 75% had "some" or "considerable" research experience in developing countries. Of respondents, 97% (95% CI 94.7 to 99.4) endorsed testing therapeutic inoculation, without HAART, in patients with HIV disease; 86% (95% CI 81.4% to 90.7%) endorsed testing against placebo. Sixty-eight percent explicitly endorsed principles where the standard of care for subjects in clinical trials is determined by local, not universal, standards. There were no differences in responses based on respondent education-level or the income-level of their country of citizenship. Conclusion: There was broad agreement that a therapy of potential local benefit may be tested, even when that therapy is known to be inferior to the standard of care in wealthy countries. Most agreed that a placebo control may be used in some circumstances. (shrink)

I. The Dominicans -- II. The Franciscans -- III. The Augustinians and the Carmelites-- IV. The Benedictines and the Cistercians -- V. The friars, philosophy and theology at papaland royal courts.

The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

Recently, Rueger and Sharp (1996) and Koperski (1998) have been concerned to show that certain procedural accounts of model confirmation are compromised by non-linear dynamics. We suggest that the issues raised are better approached by considering whether chaotic data analysis methods allow for reliable inference from data. We provide a framework and an example of this approach.

Our aim in this article is to define the difficulties that clinical ethics services encounter when they are asked to demonstrate the value a clinical ethics service (CES) could and should have for an institution and those it serves. The topic emerged out of numerous related presentations at the Un- Conference hosted by the Cleveland Clinic in August 2018 that identified challenges of articulating the value of clinical ethics work for hospital administrators. After a review these talks, it was apparent (...) that the field of clinical ethics may be at a crisis of sorts due to increased pressure to provide explicit measures to healthcare institutions to concretely demonstrate that CESs make a valuable difference in healthcare delivery. In this article, we grapple with how to satisfy the need for demonstrable value in a field in which metrics alone may not capture the scope of clinical ethics practice. We suggest that capturing the value of a CES has been difficult because the benefits of ethics consultation may be overt or attributable to the CES, but are often hidden due to the systems-level and process-oriented nature of clinical ethics work. Part of the difficulty in demonstrating the value of CESs is capturing and conveying all of the ways the integration of a CES throughout an institution positively affects patients, families, visitors, healthcare professionals, administrators, and the institution itself. Our aim is to (1) elucidate the multifaceted value added by a CES, including value that tends to be hidden and (2) suggest how to demonstrate value to others in a way that is not simplistic or reductionistic. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol (...) on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli. (shrink)

This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown (...) University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

This study examines the socioeconomic and familial background of Irish Catholic priests born between 1867 and 1911. Previous research has hypothesized that lack of marriage opportunities may influence adoption of celibacy as part of a religious institution. The present study traced data from Irish seminary registries for 46 Catholic priests born in County Limerick, Ireland, using 1901 Irish Census returns and Land Valuation records. Priests were more likely to originate from landholding backgrounds, and with landholdings greater in size and wealth (...) than the local average. Priests were found to originate from families with more sons than the national average, but with similar numbers of daughters. These findings are discussed in relation to competition for resources and lineage survival strategies. (shrink)

A new advanced systems theory concerning the emergent nature of the Social, Consciousness, and Life based on Mathematics and Physical Analogies is presented. This meta-theory concerns the distance between the emergent levels of these phenomena and their ultra-efficacious nature. The theory is based on the distinction between Systems and Meta-systems (organized Openscape environments). We first realize that we can understand the difference between the System and the Meta-system in terms of the relationship between a ‘Whole greater than the sum of (...) the parts’ and a ‘Whole less than the sum of its parts’, i.e., a whole full of holes (like a sponge) that provide niches for systems in the environment. Once we understand this distinction and clarify the nature of the unusual organization of the Meta-system, then it is possible to understand that there is a third possibility which is a whole exactly equal to the sum of its parts that is only supervenient like perfect numbers. In fact, there are three kinds of Special System corresponding to the perfect, amicable, and sociable aliquot numbers. These are all equal to the sum of their parts but with different degrees of differing and deferring in what Jacques Derrida calls “differance”. All other numbers are either excessive (systemic) or deficient (metasystemic) in this regard. The Special Systems are based on various mathematical analogies and some physical analogies. But the most important of the mathematical analogies are the hypercomplex algebras, which include the Complex Numbers, Quaternions, and Octonions, with the Sedenions corresponding to the Emergent Meta-system. However, other analogies are the Hopf fibrations between hyperspheres of various dimensions, nonorientable surfaces, soliton solutions, etc. These Special Systems have a long history within the tradition since they can be traced back to the imaginary cities of Plato. The Emergent Meta-system is a higher order global structure that includes the System with the three Special Systems as a cycle. An example of this from our tradition is in the Monadology of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. There is a conjunctive relationship between the System schema and the Special Systems that produce the Meta-system schema cycle. The Special Systems are a meta-model for the relationship between the emergent levels of Consciousness (Dissipative Ordering based on the theory of negative entropy of Prigogine), Living (Autopoietic Symbiotic based on the theory of Maturana and Varela), and Social (Reflexive based on the theory of John O’Malley and Barry Sandywell). These different special systems are related to the various existenitals identified by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time and various temporal reference frames identified by Richard M. Pico. We also relate the special systems to morphodynamic and teleodynamic systems of Terrence Deacon in Incomplete Nature to which we add sociodynamic systems to complete the series of Special Systems. (shrink)