There is nothing like an overwhelming consensus of opinion to encourage a less than rigourous approach to analyzing complex ethical issues. Unfortunately, this is nowhere more apparent than in the discussion of human reproductive cloning contained in the federal House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs’ report on human cloning, released last August The report may well fulfil the first half of its project, namely the empirical task of adequately summarizing and categorizing the various submissions made to (...) the Committee. However, it is clearly inadequate as a discussion of the ethical and legal permissibility of human reproductive cloning. (shrink)

Work may be overvalued by a workaholic culture, undervalued in an entertainment culture, made a paradigm for life by Marxist thought or the worker may be devalued and regarded as all other factors in production. All are attempts to build self-image apart from God's work in restoring his image in us.

ExcerptDavid Lloyd Dusenbury, The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History. London: Hurst Publishers, 2021. Pp. 272. The Innocence of Pontius Pilate by David L. Dusenbury of the Danube Institute is a profound reflection on the differentiation of secular and religious authority that should excite theologians, historians, believers, as well as historical sociologists. The point of departure is the question of the innocence or guilt of Pilate, the Roman magistrate who condemned Jesus to death, which (...) has been a contested issue from soon after Jesus died to modern New Testament criticism. Was Pilate guilty of the highest crime— deicide—or had he been, in some sense, innocent or even just? More interesting than a mere overview of how different epochs and authors received the Pilate story, Dusenbury’s book investigates the ramifications of the only sense in which Pilate was innocent: he was innocent of an understanding of a kingdom not of this earth. As Paul puts it succinctly in I Corinthians: “None of the rulers of this age (saeculum) understood this [other kingdom]—for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (55). (shrink)

"This book offers a valuable contribution to the growing scholarship on Catholic universities and on Augustine of Hippo, engaging in "Augustinian inquiry" and pointing to possibilities for renewal in liberal education in the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.

This research was focused on investigating why some consumers might support cause-related marketing campaigns for reasons other than personal benefit by examining the influence of moral emotions and cultural orientation. The authors investigated the extent to which moral emotions operate differently across a cultural variable (US versus Korea) and an individual difference variable (self-construal). A survey method was utilised. Data were collected from a convenience sample of US ( n = 180) and Korean ( n = 191) undergraduates. Moral emotions (...) significantly influenced purchase intention for a social-cause product. The influence of an ego-focused moral emotion (i.e., pride) on purchase intention was greater for US than Korean participants. The influence of another-focused moral emotion (i.e., guilt) on purchase intention was greater for high-interdependent participants than for low-interdependent participants. The findings of this research provide important and relevant implications to marketers and policy makers in developing persuasive messages and customer relationship programmes. (shrink)

The Hwang affair, a dramatic and far reaching instance of scientific fraud, shocked the world. This collective national failure prompted various organizations in Korea, including universities, regulatory agencies, and research associations, to engage in self-criticism and research ethics reforms. This paper aims, first, to document and review research misconduct perpetrated by Hwang and members of his research team, with particular attention to the agencies that failed to regulate and then supervise Hwang’s research. The paper then examines the research ethics reforms (...) introduced in the wake of this international scandal. After reviewing American and European research governance structures and policies, policy makers developed a mixed model mindful of its Korean context. The third part of the paper examines how research ethics reform is proactive (a response to shocking scientific misconduct and ensuing external criticism from the press and society) as well as reactive (identification of and adherence to national or international ethics standards). The last part deals with Korean society’s response to the Hwang affair, which had the effect of a moral atomic bomb and has led to broad ethical reform in Korean society. We conceptualize this change as ethical modernization, through which the Korean public corrects the failures of a growth-oriented economic model for social progress, and attempts to create a more trustworthy and ethical society. (shrink)

It is shown that the jet mechanism derivable from the Lorentz deformation picture leads to a nearly constant average jet transverse momentum. It is pointed out that this is consistent with the high-energy experimental data. It is pointed out further that this result strengthens the physical basis for the minimal time-energy uncertainty combined covariantly with Heisenberg's space-momentum uncertainty relation.

L’examen de certains manuscrits inédits du Fonds Foucault déposé par Daniel Defert à la BnF, en 2013, montre que le Descartes de Foucault est une variante simplifiée de celui de Heidegger. Foucault reprend en effet à la lecture heideggérienne de Descartes la liaison que le philosophe allemand met en place entre la mathesis universalis et le cogito, qui ne se trouve assurément pas chez Descartes. C’est de cette manière que ces deux auteurs critiquent ce qu’ils mettent eux-mêmes au jour chez (...) Descartes – le sujet de la certitude – et qu’ils font de l’inquiétude l’affect historique propre à la pensée. La présente étude reconstruit le lien entre la mathesis et le cogito et la critique de la vérité comme certitude, tel qu’il est élaboré dans les cours de Heidegger sur Descartes, Augustin et Aristote, au début des années 20. La manière dont Heidegger établit ce lien suit l’évolution de la pensée de Heidegger, mais nous prenons le parti de mettre l’accent sur le cours sur Descartes de 1922-1923 (Introduction à la recherche phénoménologique), car dans les années 20, Heidegger fait de l’inquiétude la figure de l’ipséité. Nous reconstruisons en parallèle la manière dont Foucault intègre la lecture heideggérienne de Descartes à la sienne et comment il en déplace la signification, en évoquant certains textes connus de l’Histoire de la folie, mais aussi en analysant des manuscrits inédits de Foucault. Car le rapprochement que nous proposons entre les deux auteurs, tout comme la mise en relief de ce qui les distingue, se fait à la faveur de l’occasion historique que constitue la mise à disposition de textes qui étaient auparavant inédits. Et, en effet, les cours de Heidegger que nous analysons ont été publiés dans la Gesamtausgabe après la mort de Foucault, et leur traduction en français est toute récente. En procédant ainsi, nous voulons montrer comment la redéfinition contemporaine de la subjectivité s’est élaborée, au XXe siècle, à partir de la notion d’inquiétude, et plus spécifiquement de l’inquiétude historique. (shrink)

From the Lockean point of view, the mind-body problem is conceived as a problem created by us. It is an error to think there is a problem with mind and body, an error of confusing nominality with reality. I argue that Locke’s agnosticism should be understood as a warning not to confuse our human point of view with what really is. From this perspective, the mind-body problem is a nominal problem, not a real one. It appears to us as a (...) problem, but is not really so. But what makes it appear to us as a problem? This is Locke’s starting point for solving the mind-body problem. (shrink)

Subtractive schooling is a type of pedagogy that subtracts from the student aspects of her identity in order to assimilate and reshape her identity to fit the American mainstream. Here, I question the value of assimilation as it takes place in our public school systems. Currently, immigrant children are often made to feel inadequate for being culturally different. This is detrimental to their development as students given that at their young age they do not yet have the emotional maturity to (...) know that their experience, language and culture are legitimate and valuable. My goal is to shift the focus of subtractive schooling to one that fosters the growth of students through recognition. I suggest that John Dewey’s and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of recognition is a helpful approach to this problem. Both Dewey and Freire’s pedagogy emphasize recognition as central to their pedagogy. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 2 Seiten: 289-297.

This book is about the philosophical, historical, and interpretative aspects of Mencius. It explores his influence, reception, and relevance in China from the third century BCE to the present, as well as offers comparative studies of Mencius and major figures in the history of Chinese and Western philosophy. With 34 accessible articles written by leading philosophers and scholars, the Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius provides both broad pictures and in-depth discussions regarding the work of one of the most (...) important and influential Chinese philosophers. It covers his normative ethics, meta-ethics, political philosophy, epistemology and moral psychology. The last section of the volume, “Mencius and Western Philosophers: Comparative Perspectives,” explicitly puts him in dialogue with major Western philosophers. The Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius serves as an essential volume for college students, graduate students, and scholars who study and teach Mencius as well as Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy in general.​. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study assessed the knowledge and perception of human biological materials and biorepositories among three study groups in South Korea. The relationship between the knowledge and the perception among different groups was also examined by using factor and regression analyses. In a self‐reporting survey of 440 respondents, the expert group was found more likely to be knowledgeable and positively perceived than the others. Four factors emerged: Sale and Consent, Flexible Use, Self‐Confidence, and Korean Bioethics and Biosafety Action restriction perception. The (...) results indicate that those who are well aware of the existence of biobanks were more positively inclined to receive the Sale and Consent perception. As a result of the need for high quality HBMs and the use of appropriate sampling procedures for every aspect of the collection and use process, the biorepository community should pay attention to ethical, legal, and policy issues. (shrink)

This study examined the role of religion in xenophobic responses to the threat of Ebola. Religious communities often offer members strong social ties and social support, which may help members cope with psychological and physical threat, including global threats like Ebola. Our analysis of a nationally representative sample in the U.S. found that overall, the more vulnerable to Ebola people felt, the more they exhibited xenophobic responses, but this relationship was moderated by importance of religion. Those who perceived religion as (...) more important in their lives exhibited weaker xenophobic reactions than those who perceived religion as less important. Furthermore, social connectedness measured by collectivism explained the moderating role of religion, suggesting that higher collectivism associated with religion served as a psychological buffer. Religious people showed attenuated threat responses because they had a stronger social system that may offer resources for its members to cope with psychological and physical threats. The current research highlights that different cultural groups react to increased threats in divergent ways. (shrink)

Our ambivalent attitudes toward the notion of ‘a life worth living’ present a philosophical puzzle: Why are we of two minds about the birth of a severely disabled child? Is the child’s life worth living or not worth living? Between these two apparently incompatible evaluative judgments, which is true? If one judgment is true and the other false, what makes us continue to find both evaluations appealing? Indeed, how can we manage to hold these inconsistent judgments simultaneously at all? I (...) critically examine two solutions to this puzzle: the hidden-indexical account and Velleman’s anti-realist account. I propose an alternative explanation which appeals to (a) state-given, as opposed to object-given, reasons for belief and (b) the distinction between belief and acceptance. I argue that (1) the fact that a severely disabled life is not worth living provides object-given reason to believe that that life is not worth living, but (2) after the birth of a severely disabled child, the psychological utility of positive evaluation gives us a state-given reason to believe that that child’s life is worth living, and a reason to accept that, in our relation with the child, her life is worth living. I conclude by drawing a practical lesson about wrongful life suits. (shrink)

In recent years, explanations of primate cognition highlighted clever arguments, rather than different ability. In the target article, definitions unify, explanations rely on basic nervous system functioning, theory is built on data that fit, and the emphasis is on evolutionary continuities. This commentary describes complexities inherent in the development of empathy that are not accounted for in Preston & de Waal's theory.