This paper is aimed at investigating the differences in ethical perception between Mainland China and Hong Kong through qualitative analysis. The level of idealism and relativism of the informants are measured quantitatively. The qualitative analysis of the viewpoints of participants from Hong Kong and other Chinese cities offers a profound understanding of ethical perception. Contradicting previous studies, our research offers a fresh perspective, indicating that those with high idealism are not always the ones who condemn misconduct or advocate for whistle-blowing. (...) Interestingly, we noted that individuals with high relativism frequently consider and emphasize alternative perspectives, rather than merely condemning or advocating misconduct and whistle-blowing. Conversely, those with low relativism frequently exhibit more anger, regardless of their stance. This discovery suggests that high relativism could be beneficial for facilitating communication between conflicting parties. (shrink)

I present and evaluate the prospects of the biosemantic program, understood as a philosophical attempt to explain the mind’s origins by appealing to something that non-minded organisms and minded organisms have in common: representational capacity. I develop an analogy with ancient attempts to account for the origins of change, clarify the biosemantic program’s aims and methods, and then distinguish two importantly different forms of objection, a priori and a posteriori. I defend the biosemantic program from a priori objections on the (...) grounds that the standard of explanation presupposed by them is inappropriate and leads to absurdities if consistently applied. Once the way is cleared of a priori objections, the success of biosemantics turns on the strength of a posteriori objections, that is, on the program’s empirical adequacy. Here, its prospects are less clear, but I offer reasons, by analogy with chemical combination and other everyday phenomena, to think that minded beings and their representational capacities might well have their origin and explanation in non-minded beings. An evolutionary origin and explanation of mind is plausible, at least as far as naturalistic accounts and explanations go. (shrink)

The economic globalization process has integrated different competitive markets and pushes firms in different countries to improve their managerial and operational efficiencies. Given the recent empirical evidence for the benefits to firms and stakeholders of good corporate governance (CG) practice, it is expected that good CG practice would be a common strategy for firms in different countries to meet the increasingly intense competition; however, this is not the case. This study examines the differences in CG practices in firms across different (...) countries using the concept of ethical sensitivity. Through the regression analysis of 271 firms in 12 countries and regions, it is found that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions can explain the differences in CG practices. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the influence of culture on ethical sensitivity, which eventually determines the CG practices in different regions. (shrink)

This chapter highlights the common practice of appealing to lay intuitions as evidence for philosophical theories of free will. These arguments often seem to assume that the purported intuitions in question are not results of error, and the purported intuitions are generalizable to some interesting extent. Some empirical investigations of these two assumptions, including some studies that revealed intra‐personal variation in compatibilist intuitions are reviewed. The chapter examines two popular error theories, the affect Hypothesis and the Bypassing Hypothesis, which take (...) these findings to challenges. With new empirical results, it argues instead that both compatibilist and incompatibilist intuitions genuinely reflect how people think about free will and moral responsibility. A pluralistic approach of theorizing about free will that allows one to embrace either compatibilism or incompatibilism in different contexts is proposed. (shrink)

Consider this scenario: A terrorist just bombed the subway in London, which resulted in the casualties of numerous innocent people. His act can be considered well-planned for he fully knew what consequences his act would bring. If determinism is true, is it possible that the terrorist in question bombed the subway out of free will? An incompatibilist would respond to this question with a resounding “no”. A compatibilist, on the other hand, would answer yes, as long as the terrorist possessed (...) certain psychological characteristics, causal histories, etc. This underlies the basis of disputes between the compatibilists and incompatibilists, who appear to hold opposite views on whether it is possible for someone to act out of free will if determinism is true. However, as I shall discuss in Chapter One, this disagreement is partly a verbal one that stems from the diverse meanings of the term “free will”. This thesis aims to transcend the verbal disagreement and explore where the deeper, more substantial disagreements may lie between compatibilists and incompatibilists. One possible sphere where substantial disagreements between compatibilists and incompatibilists may lie is the content of the ordinary concept of free will, or that of the strongest sense of control condition necessary for securing the ordinary concept of moral responsibility. On this view, the metaphysical question and the conceptual question about free will are inseparable; in order to find out the metaphysical satisfaction conditions of free will, one must first identify the conceptual satisfaction conditions of free will. Further, the latter is reflected in everyday free will/ moral responsibility ascriptions about hypothetical or real scenarios. In Chapter Two, I analyze how the recent experimental philosophy movement bears on this issue. By examining the findings of some current experimental philosophy studies, I argue that neither compatibilism nor incompatibilism can sufficiently capture the ordinary concept of free will or moral responsibility. In the light of my discussions in Chapter Two, I explain in Chapter Three why each of the various traditional accounts of free will cannot independently provide an adequate “package deal” of solutions for the problem of free will. Near the end of the chapter, I propose a pluralistic, agnostic account of free will as an alternative solution. Despite its great instrumental value, experimental philosophy is not widely recognized as a philosophically significant methodology. Hence, Chapter Four is devoted to discussing the actual and potential values of experimental philosophy in the light of its contribution to the free will debate. I conclude that the encounter between the free will debate and the experimental philosophy movement is a fruitful one; the former proves the value of the latter by receiving helpful insights from it. (shrink)

Background Care homes have been disproportionately affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical challenges of enacting infection control measures in care home settings have been widely reported, but little is known about the ethical concerns of care home staff during the implementation of such measures.. Objectives To understand the ethical challenges perceived by care home staff during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design An exploratory qualitative study. Participants and research context A purposive sample of 15 care home staff (...) in different roles and ranks in Hong Kong was recruited to take part in semi-structured interviews between June and August 2020. Ethical considerations Ethical approval for this study was obtained. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Participants had the right to withdraw from the study at any time without reprisal. Findings Three themes were identified: unclear legitimacy regarding infection control measures, limited autonomy in choices over infection control measures and inevitable harms to residents’ well-being. While the participants expected that they would have legitimated power to implement infection control measures, they were resistant when their right to self-determination of testing and vaccination was infringed. They also felt trapped between ethical duties to protect care home residents from infection risk and the anticipated detrimental effects of infection control measures. Conclusions The findings of this study reveal tensions among the ethical obligations of care home staff in response to a public health emergency. They highlight the importance of strengthening ethical sensitivity and ethical leadership in identifying and resolving the challenges of pandemic responses. (shrink)

Over recent years, the issue of corruption in the public construction sector has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers worldwide. However, limited efforts are available for investigating the underlying factors of corruption in this sector. Thus, this study attempted to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring the underlying factors of corruption in the public construction sector of China. To achieve this goal, a total of 14 structured interviews were first carried out, and a questionnaire survey was then administered (...) to 188 professionals in China. Two iterations of multivariate analysis approaches, namely, stepwise multiple regression analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were successively utilized to analyze the collected data. In addition, a case study was also conducted to triangulate the findings obtained from the statistical analysis. The results generated from these three research methods achieve the same conclusion: the most influential underlying factor leading to corruption was immorality, followed by opacity, unfairness, procedural violation, and contractual violation. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring the properties of corruption in the public construction sector. The findings from this study are also valuable to the construction authorities as they can assist in developing more effective anti-corruption strategies. (shrink)

Resumo: Não apenas as famílias aristocráticas indígenas, mas também as famílias de imigrantes do norte que viviam no Leste de Zhejiang, estavam envolvidas nos debates sobre teoria monetária e pensamento político, na Dinastia Jin Oriental e Dinastias do Sul. Os debates geralmente se concentravam nos preços das commodities e no trabalho forçado no Leste de Zhejiang. Esse fenômeno histórico especial reflete duas questões. Por um lado, o caos causado pela guerra no Norte e as famílias de estudiosos, migrando para o (...) Sul, promoveram muito o desenvolvimento do Sul da China, o que tornou os cinco condados do leste de Zhejiang as áreas mais importantes e ativas da economia. Por outro lado, reflete as mudanças de relacionamento entre imigrantes e nobres indígenas. Ou seja, as famílias aristocráticas indígenas e as famílias imigrantes do Norte cooperaram na economia para aumentar a prosperidade e o desenvolvimento do Leste de Zhejiang. Mais tarde, com o surgimento de “povo comum (寒人)”, o status econômico dos estudiosos foi cada vez mais impactado, o que resultou em ansiedade e consciência de crise dos nobres. (shrink)

Response strategy is a key for preventing widespread corruption vulnerabilities in the public construction sector. Although several studies have been devoted to this area, the effectiveness of response strategies has seldom been evaluated in China. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the effectiveness of response strategies for corruption vulnerabilities through a survey in the Chinese public construction sector. Survey data obtained from selected experts involved in the Chinese public construction sector were analyzed by factor analysis and partial (...) least squares-structural equation modeling. Analysis results showed that four response strategies of leadership, rules and regulations, training, and sanctions, only achieved an acceptable level in preventing corruption vulnerabilities in the Chinese public construction sector. This study contributes to knowledge by improving the understanding of the effectiveness of response strategies for corruption vulnerabilities in the public construction sector of developing countries. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

People draw subtle distinctions in the normative domain. But it remains unclear exactly what gives rise to such distinctions. On one prominent approach, emotion systems trigger non-utilitarian judgments. The main alternative, inspired by Chomskyan linguistics, suggests that moral distinctions derive from an innate moral grammar. In this article, we draw on Bayesian learning theory to develop a rational learning account. We argue that the ‘size principle’, which is implicated in word learning, can also explain how children would use scant and (...) equivocal evidence to interpret candidate rules as applying more narrowly than utilitarian rules. (shrink)

本书集合了中德专家学者对启蒙思想的内涵、启蒙与宗教的关系的研究成果。收录了《启蒙的主体》、《宽容是人类独有的财富——启蒙时代的理性概念和普遍主义》、《中国，启蒙何用？》、《启蒙与宗教》、《千万不要跟我 们谈康德！》等研究论文。.

This research article is a collaborative set of reflections and provocations stemming from the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded workshop on STS as a Critical Pedagogy, hosted online during the summer of 2021 by Shannon N. Conley and Emily York at James Madison University. The workshop occurred over four separate sessions, bringing together forty participants (including six undergraduate students who contributed as both facilitators and research assistants). Participants self-organized into panels, leading the workshop collective to engage a host of questions, (...) challenges, methods, and practices related to STS and critical pedagogy. Questions included the following. What characterizes critical STS pedagogies? How are critical STS pedagogies enabled and constrained by our institutional and disciplinary locations? What makes STS pedagogies travel? How might we imagine STS pedagogies otherwise? How do our pedagogies shape our research and engagement in the world? How might we critically interrogate the boundaries between research, teaching, service, and engagement, and what becomes visible when we do so? (shrink)

The ideal of harmony is often singled out as central to Chinese philosophy and distinctive of the East Asian value system as a whole. In recent years, indeed, some governments in Asia have looked to the virtue of harmony in building social cohesion and national identity. However, it is difficult to pinpoint the meaning of harmony in Chinese thought, for it remains very much a diffused concept, embedded in not one but a host of concepts such as “unity of heaven (...) and human beings” (tianren hey), “great unity” (datong), “great peace” (taiping), and the “doctrine of the mean” (zhongyong). In this discussion, I focus on the concept of he, which is arguably the most basic among concepts that convey a sense of harmony in Chinese philosophy. In particular, I explore the concept of he as a contested metaphor, between harmony in music and the artful blending of different ingredients in cooking. A different logic, it seems to me, guides their construal of harmony. On this basis, I examine also the concept of “rightness” (yi) in early Confucian ethics, focusing on some of the Guodian bamboo texts and especially the Mencius, in which he, signifi cantly, I believe, receives little attention. (shrink)

Though scholars of Chinese Theology have expanded the inter-religious dialogue between Christian theology and traditional Chinese philosophy and culture from Neo-Confucianism to other fields such as Taoism, the dialogue with Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan Buddhism, has not been carried out yet. This article mainly reflects on the starting point of Leung In-sing’s Chinese Theology through the perspective of Dharma as Nonduality in Chan. Firstly, it briefly outlines the background and basic ideas of Chinese Theology formulated by Leung In- (...) sing, focusing on discussing the two fundamental theological categories: “Relationship” and “Rapport.” Then, it annotates and analyzes Huineng’s“Dharma as Nonduality.”Finally, from the perspective of Huineng, it rethinks the starting point of Chinese Theology itself and proposes further research questions. (shrink)

This chapter highlights the significance of Yi I 李珥 and his contribution to the development of Korean Neo-Confucianism. Yulgok was a “synthesizer” in his approach to the some fundamental issues and controversies that dominated the sixteenth century Joseon Neo-Confucianism. Some of most controversial issues that Yulgok dealt with were the relationship between “principle” or i/li 理 and “vital force” or gi/qi 氣, the famous “four-seven” debates, the problem of relating the “human mind” and the “dao-mind”, and the idea of understanding (...) the human in relation to the cosmos. Yulgok dealt each of these vital issues with his unique non-dualistic approach which synthesized the conceptual polarity that caused serious debates in the Korean Neo-Confucian circle. The concepts such as i/li and gi/qi, eum/yin and yang, the “human mind” and the “dao-mind,” for example, were understood by some leading Confucian scholars including Yi Hwang 李滉 structured dualistically. Yulgok thought that although these ideas appeared to be conceptually dualistic, they were, in fact, related to each other with an intrinsic ontological unity based on the same reality. However, Yulgok made a clear distinction between different manifestations of the same ontological substance. For example, Yulgok discussed about the mysterious relationship of i and gi: “The mystery of i and gi is difficult to see or to talk. The origin of i is one, the origin of gi is also one…. gi does not part from i, and i does not part from gi. This being the case, i and gi are one.” It is essential to understand Yulgok’s non-dualistic view of reality. For Yulgok, reality was profoundly relational. For him relation was not simply a connection or an external binding but it was fundamentally an intrinsic unity of beings or entities by stating that one cannot exist without the other. In this respect, Yulgok was a non-dualistic thinker who understood reality not in the framework of dichotomy but in the intrinsic unity of i and gi and the “four beginnigs” and the “seven feelings”, etc. Yulgok’s anthropology, ontology, and cosmology were based on his synthetic and comprehensive approach to the critical issues of Korean Neo-Confucianism. This chapter is a brief summary of Yulgok’s life and thoughts in relationship to each other to observe his intellectual development in light of his personal growth. (shrink)

Ro explores the philosophical and religious dimensions of Korean neo-Confucianism as expounded by one of its foremost thinkers, Yi Yulgok.

Neo-Daoism has often been approached from a historical perspective. Toward the end of the Han dynasty, a major political protest movement known as qing-yi (清議) or ‘Pure Criticism’ shook the Chinese world. Led by eminent scholar-officials and students of the imperial academy, it was directed especially against the alleged abuses of powerful palace eunuchs. The movement, however, was ruthlessly suppressed. Consequently, many literati seem to have become disillusioned with the political process. This not only marked a turning point in Han (...) politics but also impacted with considerable force on the course of culture and philosophy. The Wei dynasty (220-65) formally ended the rule of the Han in 220 CE. Politics remained extremely volatile. Externally, two rival regimes challenged the Wei claim to supremacy; internally, power struggles among factions of the ruling elite rendered life at court doubly treacherous. In this context, we find the appearance of an influential upper-class cultural phenomenon known as ‘Pure Conversation’ (qing-tan 清 談), in which scholar-officials and men of letters in general gathered for pleasure and devoted their intellectual and creative energies to music, poetry, philosophy, and other forms of cultured discourse. Xuan-xue in the general sense outlined above formed a major topic of Pure Conversation. In view of the turbulent political background, some scholars have concluded that Neo-Daoism contained a strong element of escapism. According to this interpretation, whereas qing-yi centered on political criticism, qing-tan, its cultural successor, was self-consciously non-political. Fearing for their safety and disheartened by the apparent futility of political engagement in effecting meaningful change, the literati turned their attention to, as it were, purer pursuits. Although the political background is important, this does not give the whole picture. Certainly, to some scholars at that time politics was so corrupt as to make a mockery of any sense of honor and moral integrity, but many continued to harbor hope in revitalizing the rule of Dao. Neo-Daoism is complex and encompasses a range of responses to new demands and challenges that came to shape the intellectual landscape of post-Han China. (shrink)

Zhong Hui (Chung Hui) was a major philosophical figure during China’s early medieval period (220-589 CE). An accomplished interpreter of the Laozi and the Yijing, Zhong Hui contributed significantly to the early development of xuanxue—literally “learning” (xue) of the “dark” or “mysterious” (xuan) Dao (“Way”), but sometimes translated as “Neo-Daoism“. He also was a major political figure whose ambition eventually led to his untimely demise. Virtually all of Zhong Hui’s writings have been lost, which perhaps explains why he has been (...) given scant attention by students of Chinese philosophy. Had he not failed in his attempt to overthrow the regime of his day, no doubt his writings would have been preserved and given the attention they justly deserve. In particular, his views on human “capacity and nature” (caixing), as developed in his interpretation of the Laozi, are major contributions to xuanxue philosophy, which dominated the Chinese intellectual scene from the third to the sixth century CE. In contrast to other thinkers of the time, who argued that capacity and nature are the same (tong), different (yi), or diverge from one another (li), Zhong Hui argued that they coincide (he). In effect, he proposed that what is endowed is potential, which must be carefully nurtured and brought to completion through learning and effort. While one’s native endowment is not sufficient, one must have some material to begin with in order to achieve the desired result. Thus, it cannot be said that the latter has nothing to do with the former. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A View of Life:Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and the NovelYi-Ping OngI"My general task," Nietzsche scrawled, in the margins of his own copy of Cervantes's Don Quixote: "to show how life philosophy and art can have a deeper and affinitive relationship with each other."1 This enigmatic inscription commands a second reading not only because it seems to articulate the thread that links many of Nietzsche's philosophical projects together, but also because of (...) the very book in which it appears. The book is not a lofty tome of Schopenhauer's philosophy, as might be expected, but a mere novel: a fact which suggests that the novel itself was the art form that precipitated reflection on the relation of art to what Nietzsche calls here "life philosophy." In this essay, my aim is to deepen critical understanding of the novel's influence on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, the two philosophers who are widely considered the fathers of existentialism. By means of a comprehensive overview of the novelistic reading and writing of these thinkers, I will show that both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were profoundly influenced by the literary form of the novel and by its techniques for representing consciousness, subjectivity, and worldview.My focus in the analysis that follows is on the question of why Nietzsche and Kierkegaard read novels, and not on the more specific question of what they gained from particular novels. Isolating form from theme has three main advantages. First, it elucidates an important aspect of the intellectual context for these philosophers that has received little scholarly attention, namely the issue of why Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were drawn to fictional novelistic prose and how this literary form [End Page 167] affected their philosophy. Second, it allows the "deeper... affinitive" relationship between existentialist philosophy and the novel form to emerge, revealing the way in which existentialism and realism in the novel share a distinctive stylistic approach to the understanding of lived experience. Finally, it illuminates an intellectual precedent for the work of later existentialist thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, who drew increasingly on novelistic forms as both vehicle and inspiration for their philosophy.There are no previous studies devoted entirely to the novels read by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, despite the fact that Nietzsche lists Stendhal and Dostoevsky as two of the greatest influences upon his thinking and that Kierkegaard's first published work is the review of a novel. Why did Nietzsche read the works not only of "philosophical" novelists like Stendhal, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, but also of Eliot, Twain, Sterne, and Flaubert? Why did Kierkegaard's interest in the "life-view" of the individual crystallize through his reflections on Hans Christian Andersen's novel Only a Fiddler? How did both of these existentialist thinkers link the task of connecting life and philosophy with their reading of novels, and how is their reading of novels related to their attempt to write philosophy in novel and increasingly novelistic ways?These questions lead us to address anew the issue of how philosophy and literature are related in a way that is not simply thematic or allegorical. Furthermore, they ask us to take into account the importance of the novel to thinkers whose work has primarily been studied in the context of other "serious" philosophical texts, despite the stylistic and formal affinity of their work to the novels they read. As Thomas Brobjer points out in his recently published work on Nietzsche's reading habits and intellectual sources, Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography (2008), none of the standard works on Nietzsche comment on his reading or library despite the fact that his private library has been more or less preserved in its entirety.2 Brobjer's work is the only large-scale study of Nietzsche's reading to date; however, it limits itself to "the philosophical influences on Nietzsche," even as it acknowledges that he "often was influenced by some who cannot conventionally be regarded as philosophers: by authors and literary critics" (NPC, p. 3). Although Brobjer mentions several of these authors and critics, even noting some of the marginalia found in these texts, he places them largely in the context of influences upon Nietzsche... (shrink)