We investigate how state involvement in the ownership of non-listed entrepreneurial firms affects pollution fees levied by national and provincial governments in China. While the national government sets minimum environmental standards, provincial governments can enact requirements that exceed these minimums, and they are largely responsible for enforcing even the national standards, so environmental levies can measure concessions that provinces make to encourage development and employment. Furthermore, state ownership is a good proxy for a firm’s political connections, which can influence the (...) relationship between the firm and the environmental authorities. We find that firms with state ownership pay lower environmental levies, which indicates that concessions are made for political or economic purposes. However, these concessions are conditional on the level of development of the province offering them, with better developed provinces providing fewer concessions. (shrink)

We've had quite a number of outbreaks of "culture fever": The first one was apparently in 1985, when I was studying overseas, and friends told me the fever was raging at home in China. When I came home in 1988, I was in time for the second one. And over the last two years there has been a fever of cultural criticism, or "discussions on the humanist spirit." It looks as though the phenomenon of culture fever has certain similarities to (...) a flu epidemic. The first two fevers were fairly respectable, and at least provided information on some of the things that had been achieved in the social sciences overseas; but the latest one has been no good at all, consisting as it does mostly of the airing of complaints. It is claimed that the attitude of society toward intellectuals in the humanities is incorrect; that the intellectuals themselves are incorrect; that since Confucius said "The gentleman understands what is moral; the small man understands what is profitable" [Analects IV. 16], we should be trying to emulate the gentleman. Probably other things too have been said, but I believe that these have been the main points of most discussions during this outbreak of cultural criticism fever. Wang Shuo has come in for a good deal of abuse this time, in the same way that, in Water Margin, Lei Heng the "Winged Tiger," county head of Yuncheng, is jeered at in the courtesan's house when someone tells him, "It would be easier for a dog to grow horns than for you to know the proper way to behave here!" Culture is just this sort of establishment, and the riff-raff are definitely not allowed to set foot inside it. Looked at in this way, culture is a set of values centered on the self, and implies a closing of the ranks against outsiders. But I have no wish to think too badly of others, so I shall just say that the "culture" which is so much in favor this time is a kind of moral strength which demands that we should all preserve our personal integrity and not be tainted by material desires. We cultural workers are like Tang dynasty Buddhist monks, and the material desires of the everyday world are like the female scorpion spirit. We must not be seduced by the sorceress and sleep with her, for then, when we have lost our original yang essence and the pure seed has left us, we will no longer be virgins, and will not be fit to go to the Western Heaven and worship the Buddha. […] But if I go on talking such rubbish, other people may not acknowledge me as a cultural worker and may deprive me of the right to discuss cultural issues. What I am trying to say is that if this fever continues, I shall soon no longer know what culture is. (shrink)

Misconduct in science is often viewed and analyzed through the lenses of normative ethics and moral philosophy. However, notions and methods in the philosophy of science could also provide rather penetrative explanatory insights into the nature and causes of scientific misconduct. A brief illustration in this regard, using as examples the widely popular Popperian falsification and the Kuhnian scientific paradigm, is provided. In multiple areas of scientific research, failure to seek falsification in a Popperian manner constitutes a questionable research practice (...) and could lead to “falsification” in the context of research misconduct. On the other hand, scientific misconduct is often facilitated by its perpetrators using the familiarity, expectations and confines of a Kuhnian paradigm to blend in fabricated data/results. A rudimentary application of these philosophical notions could be useful in our understanding of the nature and cause of research misconduct, and facilitate mitigation of the latter through educational means. (shrink)

What is it for an imprecise credence to be justified? It might be thought that this is not a particularly urgent question for friends of imprecise credences to answer. For one might think that its answer just depends on how a well-trodden issue in epistemology plays out—namely, that of which theory of doxastic justification, be it reliabilism, evidentialism, or some other theory, is correct. I’ll argue, however, that it’s difficult for reliabilists to accommodate imprecise credences, at least if we understand (...) such credences to be determinate first-order attitudes. If I’m right, reliabilists will have to reject imprecise credences, and friends of imprecise credences will have to reject reliabilism. Near the end of the paper, I’ll also consider whether reliabilism can accommodate indeterminate credences. (shrink)

Network ranging and clock synchronization based on two-way timing stamps exchange mechanism in complex GPS-denied environments is addressed in this paper. An estimator based on the Extended Kalman filter is derived, according to which, the clock skew, clock offset, and ranging information can be jointly estimated. The proposed estimator provides off-line computation by storing the transmitting timing stamps in advance and could be implemented in asymmetrical and asynchronous scenarios. The simulation results show that the proposed estimator achieves a relative good (...) performance than the existed estimators. In addition, a new Bayesian Cramér–Rao Lower Bound is derived. Numerous simulation results show that the proposed estimator meets the B-CRLB. (shrink)

The vast majority of indigenous communities are among the world’s poorest and are unlikely to be engaged in a thriving, mutually beneficial partnership with an MNC. While there are increasing studies on CSR initiatives in base of the pyramid communities, few—if any—feature the self-initiated stakeholder transition of an impoverished community. This paper examines the factors that motivated the stakeholder transformation process of an indigenous community, from its position as a non-stakeholder, one lacking in power and legitimacy, to the status of (...) being a primary stakeholder of the firm. We applied a constructivist grounded theory approach to longitudinal data to arrive at the conceptual framework. The findings presented are drawn from an in-depth case study of the Maasai, an indigenous community from East Africa. The findings point to the existence of entrepreneurial alertness that is instrumental in propelling the indigenous community to evolve from one stakeholder category to the next. Our research aims to propose a possible foundation for how communities deep in poverty can coalesce themselves to make their social needs salient to multinational organizations. (shrink)

Peifeng Tang untersucht das Verhältnis von Eigentum und Staat im Rahmen von Kants Transzendentalphilosophie. Nach systematischen und begrifflichen Vorklärungen analysiert der Autor zunächst, wie Kant? unter der Annahme einer Abhängigkeit des Rechts von der Moral? rechtfertigt, dass die Möglichkeit des Eigentums mit Notwendigkeit vorausgesetzt werden muss. Anschließend wird dargestellt, wie Kant das Problem des wirklichen Erwerbs des Eigentums transzendentalphilosophisch behandelt und von hier aus Entstehungsgrund, Aufgaben und Befugnisse des Staates in Bezug auf das Eigentum konzipiert. Dabei zeigt sich, dass (...) nicht erst dem Sozialstaat, sondern bereits dem kantischen Rechtsstaat eine Befugnis zur Eigentumsbeschränkung zukommt; sie darf aber nicht willkürlich, sondern nur streng demokratisch und zweckgebunden ausgeübt werden. Schließlich wird Kants Rousseau-Rezeption erläutert. Dadurch kommt die Arbeit zu dem Ergebnis, dass der Themenkomplex nicht nur eine rechts-, sondern auch eine geschichtsphilosophische Dimension hat. Unter letzterem Aspekt würde die Ausbreitung des Privateigentums nicht unbedingt zu Unfrieden führen, vielmehr könnte sie sogar einen Beitrag zur Rechtsverbesserung und zur Menschheitsentwicklung leisten. (shrink)

从生存语义入手来检讨人类美学的历史性迷雾,将美与人类生存发展及其行为意义联系起来进行整体考察,揭示美的产生与人类的诞生、审美创造与人类生存发展间的本质关系—其立意与视野,既新颖,又具有前所未有性。.

本书力图探讨利益的人类生命本质和社会本质,制定出更符合人类目标的利益伦理价值导向系统和利益道德规范体系。正面探讨了利益的终极道德本质,从整体上重新考察了利益伦理的基本道德原则,利益与劳动、价值、德行、 公正、政府道德和法律治理等重要而迫切的问题.

本书对马克思主义哲学的发展问题进行研究,作者致力于通过对马克思主义发展的某些概念、范畴和原理的反思和阐述,使读者洞悉马克思主义哲学过去、现在和未来的诸多方面。.

本书包括: 与命与仁: 原始儒家的伦理精神及其现代诠释、问题与观念: 现代性格义、原始儒家的天命—道德史观与现代性的时间、原始儒家的“为己之学”与现代性的自我问题、原始儒家的“天命在身”观念与现代性的政道问题.

Xunzi’s pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi (義) put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls “the compatibility problems,” the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi’s functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi’s moral philosophy were to fail to solve these two (...) problems, it would be guilty of inconsistency. In reconstructing a genealogy of Xunzi’s philosophy, I argue that he can successfully resolve the two compatibility problems, and his genealogy perspicuously shows that virtue can grow out of vicious human nature. (shrink)

本书是一本关于意识的自然科学研究的论著,提出了要用自然科学的观点和方法,考察了意识的实验资料,探讨了意识的本质及四个规律。.

Examines the influence of Jeremy Bentham's legal and political writings in Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and the United States.

Drawing upon original manuscripts and The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, this collection represents the latest scholarship on Bentham's late and mature thought on constitutional law. The contributions cover a diverse range of major topics, from official aptitude or competency to the interests of women, and explore Bentham's writings on courts, codification, and cosmopolitanism. Together, its chapters challenge the received notion, based on early jurisprudential writings, that Bentham's constitutional thought is authoritarian, and show that Bentham, as a constitutional theorist, offers (...) a distinctive liberal perspective. Freeing Bentham's theories from their long sentences and unfamiliar terminology, these essays make accessible Bentham's subtle and important ideas on liberal democracy. By shining a light on Bentham's mature thought, this volume offers a refreshingly comprehensive, detailed, and authentic account of Bentham's theory of democracy. (shrink)

In coal mining technology systems, it is very important to acquire, store, and represent basic geological data comprehensively and accurately. Based on the current working mode and information level in mining geology at coal mines, this paper proposes a process of building basic geological database for modeling of coal mines by using existing results’ data of mining geology and develops the efficient program for getting the basic geological data from the important 2D plane drawings’ achievement at mines, such as the (...) contour maps of mine coal seam floors, geological cross-sections, underground drilling results, and geological survey results, based on AutoLISP, which is a programming language for the secondary development of AutoCAD. The obtained data in general text format is stored and managed by the MongoDB database, which realizes the storage, query, analysis, and correction of massive data of geological objects in the space of the underground coalmine. The application results show that compared with the previous data acquisition methods such as manual input and graphic transformation attribute, the extraction of spatial and attribute data from the existing mine 2D plane drawings by programming can effectively avoid the prominent problems such as artificial gross error, distortion of graph conversion, and different database structure, make the obtained spatial geological data more comprehensive, accurate, and effective, and, meanwhile, increase the rate by more than 60%, which plays an important role in data support for the construction of the geological modeling systems for transparent mines. (shrink)

The concepts of Minben 民本, Minbensixiang 民本思想, and Minbenzhuyi 民本主义 are rather popular in current Chinese discourse. However, “Minben” was hardly found in Chinese ancient literature as a noun. Around the year of 1916, “Minbenzhuyi” became widely accepted in Japanese intellectual circles, interpreted as one of the Japanese versions of democracy. In 1917, “Minbenzhuyi” was transferred to China as a loanword by Li Dazhao and developed into one of the Chinese definitions of democracy. Nevertheless, Chen Duxiu questioned the meaning of (...) the term in 1919. It was not until 1922 did Liang Qichao bring Minbenzhuyi back into Chinese context and conduct a systematic analysis, which had a lasting impact on Chinese intellectual community. In the following 20 years, Minbenzhuyi was largely accepted in two different senses : 1) interpreted as Chinese definition of democracy; 2) specifically refers to the Confucian idea of “Minshiminting and Minguijunqing”. Gradually, it became evident that Minbenzhuyi in China had grown distant from the meaning of democracy and returned to its traditional Confucian values. (shrink)

I address the problem of whether philosophy can be international by its claim to represent rationality, hence universality. I argue in favor of this claim by focusing on the special logic thesis in Chinese philosophy. This thesis holds that a different type of logic must be used when studying the Chinese texts. I argue at length against the special logic thesis by examining the problem of human nature in the Confucian philosophers Mencius, Hsün Tzu and Kao Tzu. I show how (...) their arguments can be reconstructed as inductive analogical arguments and as deductive argument. I then broaden the notion of the logic of argumentation into a discussion of metaphysical anti‐essentialism and underdetermination in order to resolve the problem of human nature and also to show how the same types of logical analysis (more generally construed) can be applied to the arguments from these Confucian philosophers. Under my treatment, Kao Tzu, somewhat surprisingly, turns out to provide the most insight. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of Confucianism on corporate poverty alleviation (PA) participation. We argue that firms in regions with more Confucian temples are more likely to participate in government-initiated PA programs because Confucianism emphasizes common social welfare. This positive relationship is stronger for firms with chief executive officers born in Confucian regions and for firms that are under high media pressure, as the trade-off between social welfare and firm interest is in favor of Confucianism. Using a sample of Chinese-listed (...) firms, we find evidence supporting our arguments. Moreover, we find consistent evidence that firms influenced by Confucianism are motivated to pay long-term attention to PA activities and improve corporate PA efficiency, highlighting the substantive role of Confucianism in a PA campaign. Our study contributes to the business ethics literature by introducing Confucianism into research on corporate social activities and provides practical implications. (shrink)

Corruption devours profits, people, and the planet. Ethical leaders promote ethical behaviors. We develop a first-stage moderated mediation theoretical model, explore the intricate relationships between ethical leadership and employee ethical behaviors, and treat ethical climate and organizational justice as dual mediators and leaders’ moral attentiveness as a moderator. We investigate leadership from two perspectives—leaders’ self-evaluation of moral attentiveness and members’ perceptions of ethical leadership. We theorize: These dual mediation mechanisms are more robust for high moral leaders than low moral leaders. (...) Our three-wave data collected from multiple sources, 236 members and 98 immediate supervisors in the Republic of Iraq, support our theory. Specifically, ethical leadership robustly impacts organizational justice’s intensity and magnitude, leading to high employee ethical behaviors when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. However, ethical leadership only influences the ethical climate’s intensity but has no impact on the magnitude when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. Therefore, organizational justice is a more robust mediator than the ethical climate in the omnibus context of leader moral attentiveness. Our findings support Western theory and constructs, demonstrating a new theory for Muslims in Arabic’s emerging markets. Individual decision-makers apply their values as a lens to frame their concerns in the immediate and omnibus contexts to maximize their expected utility and ultimate serenity-happiness. Ethical leadership trickles down to employee ethical behaviors, providing practical implications for improving the ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, leader-member exchange, business ethics, and economic potentials in the global competitive markets. (shrink)

Editor’s AbstractTang Wenming is a professor of philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, trained in both the European and Chinese traditions, and the author of a sophisticated critique of Mou Zongsan's philosophy. The central idea in this conversation is that contemporary Confucianism must find a way to recover its “edifying” (jiaohua) role in Chinese society. Philosophy is important, says Tang, but Confucianism cannot simply be an academic philosophy; it must have a broader social function, and some sort of institutional (...) innovation is necessary in order to accomplish this. (shrink)