Compiled in China in the fourth-third centuries B.C.E., The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to penetrate society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a "rich state and a strong army" will be the first step toward unification of "All-under-Heaven." These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In this new translation, The Book of Lord Shang's intellectual boldness and (...) surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text's vibrant contribution to global political thought. The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the political theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China's so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work's previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book's dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. This edition applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text's content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This fully annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists in placing the work within a timeline of influence. It highlights the text's practical success and its impact on the political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China. (shrink)

Reprint of Volume XVII in Probsthain's Oriental Series. With a Chinese index and an index of names and references. The Book of Lord Shang was probably compiled sometime between 359 and 338 BCE. Along with the Han Fei-Tzu, it is one of the two principal sources of Legalism, a school of Chinese political thought. Legalism asserts that human behavior must be controlled through written law rather than through ritual, custom or ethics because people are innately selfish and ignorant. The (...) law is not effective when it is based on goodness or virtue; it is effective when it compels obedience. This is essential to preserve the stability of the State. Roscoe Pound recommended this book for the study of old Chinese law in Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence (5th ed.) 235. (shrink)

Shang, Yang. The Book of Lord Shang. A Classic of the Chinese School of Law. Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Notes by Dr. J.J.L. Duyvendak.

Some bioethicists argue that a doctor may frame treatment options in terms of effects on survival rather than on mortality in order to influence patients to choose the better option. The debate over such framing typically assumes that the survival and mortality frames convey the same numerical information. However, certain empirical findings contest this numerical equivalence assumption, demonstrating that framing effects may in fact be due to the two frames implying different information about the numerical bounds of survival and mortality (...) rates. In this paper, I use these findings to argue that framing is presumptively wrong because it violates the duty of proper disclosure. Along the way, I highlight morally relevant features affecting the permissibility of framing, tackle three objections and draw some general lessons for the ethics of nudging. (shrink)

"Ratgeber für das tägliche Leben, Lebenshilfe-Breviere, Literatur zum Zeitmanagement erlebt im Moment eine große Konjunktur. Psychologen, Theologen und Philosophen, aber auch Manager und ehemalige Mönche kümmern sich um dieses Themenfeld. Solche alltagsethische Orientierungsliteratur versucht, die gegenwärtige starke Nachfrage zu bedienen und gleichzeitig alte Traditionen aus der Philosophie der Antike, aus der Theologie der Kirchenväter und des Klosterlebens sowie aus der Alltagspsychologie aufzunehmen. Dieses Phänomen bedarf der theologischen Analyse aus Perspektiven der Sozialethik, der praktischen wie der systematischen Theologie. Es ergeben sich (...) Fragen nach dem Verständnis von Alltag, nach einer zeitgemäßen modernen Spiritualität. Im vorliegenden Band werden aktuelle alltagsethische Entwürfe analysiert; in einem zweiten Schritt werden konstruktive theologische Perspektiven entwickelt.". (shrink)

This paper provides an account of the experience of empathizing with the fictional characters of literary works, through the lens of Husserl's theory of presentification. Via a critical analysis of Husserl and other phenomenologists, I argue that fictional characters, though lacking embodied presence, can be presentified to the reader in the mode of "as if." Moreover, I claim that imaginative empathy is a guided creative reproduction of sedimented past bodily experiences. This explains why, motivated by imaginative empathetic presentification, not only (...) aesthetic feelings, but also "as if" existential feelings come to the fore. Finally, it shows to what extent presentation and the different modes of presentification are interwoven and function together. (shrink)

Debunking arguments in ethics contend that our moral beliefs have dubious evolutionary, cultural, or psychological origins—hence concluding that we should doubt such beliefs. Debates about debunking are often couched in coarse-grained terms—about whether our moral beliefs are justified or not, for instance. In this paper, I propose a more detailed Bayesian analysis of debunking arguments, which proceeds in the fine-grained framework of rational confidence. Such analysis promises several payoffs: it highlights how debunking arguments don’t affect all agents, but rather only (...) those agents who updated on their intuitions using a specific range of evidentiary weights; it underscores how the debunkers shouldn’t conclude that we should reduce confidence beyond some threshold, but rather only that we should reduce confidence by some amount; and it proposes a method of integrating different kinds of evidence—about the kinds of epistemic flaws at play, about the different possible origins of our moral beliefs, about the background normative assumptions we’re entitled to make—in order to arrive at a rational moral credence in light of debunking. (shrink)

Suppose an agent is choosing between rescuing more people with a lower probability of success, and rescuing fewer with a higher probability of success. How should they choose? Our moral judgments about such cases are not well-studied, unlike the closely analogous non-moral preferences over monetary gambles. In this paper, I present an empirical study which aims to elicit the moral analogues of our risk preferences, and to assess whether one kind of evidence—concerning how they depend on outcome probabilities—can debunk them. (...) I find significant heterogeneity in our moral risk preferences—in particular, moral risk-seeking and risk-neutrality are surprisingly popular. I also find that subjects’ judgments aren't probability-dependent, thus providing an empirical defense against debunking arguments from probability dependence. (shrink)

Objectives: Athlete burnout is a crucial concern affecting the development and athletic performance of young weightlifters. To reduce or relieve the prevalence of athlete burnout, this study examined the relationship across social support, sports motivation, mental toughness, and athlete burnout in weightlifters.Methods: A total of 315 weightlifters aged 17–28 years old from Sichuan, Chongqing, and Shanxi in China participated in this survey. The Perceived Available Support in Sport Questionnaire, Sports Motivation Questionnaire, Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire, and Athlete Burnout Questionnaire were (...) used in this study. SPSS Statistics 19.0, AMOS 21.0, and PROCESS 3.0 macro were used to analyze the collected data.Results: The results indicated that weightlifters’ social support could negatively significantly affect athlete burnout [beta = −0.398; 95% confidence interval : −0.3699, −0.2184; P < 0.05) via mental toughness and sports motivation. The mediation analysis revealed that they had partial mediating effect, including three paths: First, social support had a direct effect on athlete burnout ; second, sport mental toughness had a mediating effect on athlete burnout ; and finally, sports motivation had a mediating effect on athlete burnout.Conclusion: The findings revealed that social support could inhibit or prevent athlete burnout via mental toughness and sports motivation; thus, to decrease or relieve the prevalence of burnout in weightlifters, it is an important solution to enhance their social support. (shrink)

Constructive deviance describes acts that benefit the organization by deviating from outdated organizational norms. Despite emerging interest in this behavior, questions remain about why and how constructive deviance occurs. This paper integrates social learning and uncertainty reduction theories, and develops a multilevel model linking team-level ethical leadership to employee constructive deviance. Surveying 313 subordinates and 52 supervisors from 15 different companies in eastern China, we find that team-level ethical leadership has a positive impact on employee constructive deviance, and that both (...) psychological safety climate and employee moral self-efficacy partially mediate this relationship. In addition, we find a positive cross-level moderating effect of psychological safety climate. These findings contribute to understanding employees’ constructive deviance in the workplace, and provide valuable implications for managerial practices. (shrink)

Criminals targeting and exploiting older adults in online environments are of great concern. This study systematically retrieved and analyzed articles on the psychological characteristics of older adult victims of online fraud. First, we found that there was no evidence that older adults were more prevalent than other individuals of other ages among online fraud victims, and current researchers have focused more on why older adults are easy targets for fraud. Second, research on psychological factors of older adults' susceptibility to online (...) fraud has mainly focused on cognitive function, trust traits, and other personality traits, such as social loneliness, the Big Five personality traits, and self-control. Among them, most researchers claim that the cyber-cheating of older adults may be due to a decline in their cognitive function. However, there has not been a consensus on how cognitive function and physical and mental conditions affect older people who are cheated. Third, techniques and experience may be related to the susceptibility of older adults to fraud, and these studies have also not yet generated a consensus supported by reliable data. Based on the above research uncertainties, we propose that fraud prevention and control strategies for older adults should be applied with caution. (shrink)

Metaphysics is a repeated act by way of representation ; the instantaneous judgment is solidified, the inevitable conclusion is made, and at the same time other possibilities are excluded. Outside thinking is a blow to the spiritual tradition of metaphysics, which holds that representation will lead to a differential activity concerning the relationship between stranger things. Such relationship follows a kind of horizontal logic, the latter discards the presupposition on the origin of things, that is, it no longer presumes that (...) this point or that point has greater privilege than other points. Things do not develop from a central point. Rather, things are the result of innumerable points in cooperative relationships between strangers. These cooperative relationships are arbitrary. In horizontal logic, many starting points or spiritual T-points are used as substitutes for a unique origin. (shrink)

The transplanted firm is an important force to promote the network evolution and cluster transformation and upgrading of the undertaking firm. From the micro-analytic perspective of firm network, this paper puts forward a theoretical framework with “relationship-network-evolution” as the main line. Taking the refrigeration industry cluster in Minquan County of China as a case study and keeping the firm networks of economic relation, technical cooperation, and social communication firm network in 2009, 2013, and 2017 as the research objects, this paper (...) analyzes the structure and evolution characteristics of regional firm network system, proposes the degree and effect of the local embeddedness of transplanted firms, and discusses their differences between international and interregional transplanted firms. The results revealed that: the local embeddedness of transplanted firms significantly promotes the development of refrigeration industry network. The network power of large-scale transplanted firms in the cluster is increasing day by day, and the network presents a multi-core trend. The local embeddedness of some transplanted firms is not high, and the overall connectivity of the network is not strong. Network intermediary nodes have strong heterogeneity, and the intermediary role of some large transplanted firms in the network needs to be improved. The three network systems have similar structural characteristics, and social capital plays an important role in the local embeddedness of transplanted firms and the development of regional firm network. Compared with international transplanted firms, interregional transplanted firms are more adaptable in terms of local embeddedness. The research results provide a reference for the construction of similar industrial clusters in China and other developing countries. (shrink)

This study explorers whether the relative impacts of brand identification and identification with other users of brand pages on brand loyalty vary according to consumers’ regulatory focus. By integrating social identification theory with regulatory focus theory, this study adopts a dual identification framework to compare the differential impacts of promotion regulatory fit and prevention regulatory fit on brand loyalty. Besides, the moderating effects of product type on the relationship between promotion/prevention regulatory fit and brand loyalty are further investigated. Finally, this (...) study uses different combinations of information technology affordances in order to examine their influences on each identification target. The current study adopts a qualitative methodology and involved conducting semi-structured interviews with 27 brand page users in regard to IT affordances and their subdimensions. The research model was empirically tested using a cross-country comparison of data collected from surveys conducted in China and the United States. The results support our hypotheses and confirm the differential effects of promotion and prevention regulatory fit on brand loyalty. Theoretically, our study enhances our understanding of the relative effect of dual identification on brand loyalty on social media. Practically, our study delivers insights for companies into how social media brand pages can be used as a strategic tool to achieve brand values. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If automatic, does it also apply when the same pitch contours no longer sound like speech? Implicit Association Tests (IATs) provide an indirect measure of cross-modal association. In a series of IAT (...) studies, conducted with participants with three kinds of language backgrounds (Chinese-dominant bilinguals, Chinese balanced bilinguals, and English speakers with no Chinese experience) we find language-specific congruence effects for Mandarin lexical tones but not for matched sine-wave stimuli. That is, for linguistic stimuli, non-Chinese speakers show advantages for pitch-height congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy); no congruence effects were found for Chinese speakers. For non-linguistic stimuli, all participant groups showed advantages for pitch-height congruence. The present findings suggest that non-lexical tone congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy) is a basic congruence pattern, and the acquisition of a language with lexical tone can alter this perception. (shrink)

In ‘Measuring the Consequences of Rules’, Holly Smith presents two problems involving the indeterminacy of compliance, which she takes to be fatal for all forms of rule-utilitarianism. In this reply, I attempt to dispel both problems.

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner’s spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe. The time course of the emotional attention effect was examined by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony of the (...) cue and probe. Two independent experiments consistently demonstrated that the brief presentation of a fearful face increased visual acuity at its location. The facilitation of perceptual sensitivity was detected at an SOA around 300 ms when the face cues were presented for both 250 ms and 150 ms. This effect cannot be explained by physical differences between the fearful and neutral faces because no improvement was found when the faces were presented inverted. In the last experiment, the face cues were flashed very briefly, and we did not find any improvement induced by the fearful face. Overall, we provide evidence that emotion interacts with attention to affect basic visual functions. (shrink)

Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms related to (...) using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)