By introducing the theory of social co-governance into the field of e-commerce intellectual property protection, this paper builds an evolutionary game model among the government, e-commerce platforms, and rights holders, and studies the conditions under the stakeholders form a stable equilibrium state under different constraints. Combined with numerical simulation, the influence of individual factors and factor combinations on the system stability is analyzed. Results shows that: Strictly controlling the action costs and response costs of all parties can enhance their willingness (...) to actively deal with infringement issues; reasonable adjustment of the reward and punishment measures of government supervisory agencies can produce sufficient reverse shock and positive guidance to platform and operators; penalties should be imposed on government supervisory agencies that are not sufficiently supervised; strengthen the construction of the social environment for intellectual property protection, improve the social benefits of actively responding to infringement issues, and increase the sense of acquisition by the government, platforms and rights holders. And it provides certain positive references and suggestions for the government to formulate relevant policies. (shrink)

Uncertainty is inherent in new and unexpected viral outbreaks such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. It imposes challenges for health officials in soliciting cooperative behavioural changes based on incomplete information. In this paper, we use evolving mask recommendations in the United States as an example to analyse the ethical importance and practical demonstration of trustworthiness in pandemic messaging and decision-making. We argue that responsible public health interventions in the time of uncertainties requires explicit intersecting ethical considerations both in action and (...) in communication to promote trustworthiness. First, as public health decisions have to be made in the face of incomplete and evolving data, health officials need to exhibit competence while committing to epistemic humility. They can explain the methods used in making and updating mask recommendations as well as explicitly acknowledge the need to incorporate sociocultural and other contextual considerations in translating scientific data into mask recommendations. Second, officials and agencies must uphold and communicate decisional transparency as part of their effort to demonstrate accountability and promote the public’s understanding of the evolving pandemic. Third, especially since both the pandemic and mask recommendations may have disparate impact on different populations, officials should start with the fair implementation of the least restrictive measures that can help reduce harm. (shrink)

The human faculty of moral judgment is not well suited to address problems, like climate change, that are global in scope and remote in time. Advocates of ‘moral bioenhancement’ have proposed that we should investigate the use of medical technologies to make human beings more trusting and altruistic, and hence more willing to cooperate in efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We survey recent accounts of the proximate and ultimate causes of human cooperation in order to assess the (...) prospects for bioenhancement. We identify a number of issues that are likely to be significant obstacles to effective bioenhancement, as well as areas for future research. (shrink)

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the music industry worldwide today. This study developed and empirically tested a model examining the antecedents of consumer attitude and behavioral intention toward music piracy behavior. Two types of music piracy behavior, unauthorized duplication/download and pirated music product purchasing, were examined. Based on a field survey in Taiwan, the results showed that attributive satisfaction, perceived prosecution risk, magnitude of consequence, and social consensus are very important in influencing customers attitude and behavioral intention toward two (...) types of music piracy behavior. In addition, singer/band idolization can affect the attitude and behavioral intention in the case of pirated music product purchasing. Perceived proximity was found to affect the attitude and behavioral intention in the case of pirated music product purchasing. However, it only influenced behavioral intention in the case of unauthorized duplication/download. (shrink)

Background: The Taiwan Nursing Accreditation Council has proposed eight core professional nursing qualities including ethical literacy. Consequently, nursing ethics education is a required course for student nurses. These courses are intended to improve the ethical literacy. Moral sensitivity is the cornerstone of ethical literacy, and learning moral sensitivity is the initial step towards developing ethical literacy. Objectives: To explore the effect of nursing ethics educational interventions based on multiple teaching strategies on student nurses moral sensitivity. Based on the visual, auditory (...) and kinaesthetic model, three strategies were developed for determining the programme components and corresponding learning styles. Research design: This was a quasi-experimental study. Participants: A total of 234 junior-college student nurses participated in this study. All participants were aged 18–19 years. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form took part in the study. The participants were permitted to withdraw from the study at any point if they wished to do so without affecting their academic score. Results: The scores of Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses were significantly improved after the intervention of integrating multiple teaching strategies ( p =.042). Significant relationships were observed between the satisfaction scores of two teaching strategies and moral sensitivity. The results indicated that using multiple teaching strategies is effective for promoting nursing ethics learning. Conclusion: This strategy was consistent with the student nurses’ preferred learning style and was used to correct their erroneous ethical conceptions, assisting in developing their ethical knowledge. (shrink)

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment and thus lead to higher organizational citizenship behaviors. This study uses hierarchical regression to understand which types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and the three components of organizational commitment influence different dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 nurses, and 352 usable questionnaires (...) were returned. The findings of the article suggest that hospitals can increase organizational citizenship behaviors by influencing an organization’s ethical climate, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations, the climate types of caring, law and code and rules climate, satisfaction with coworkers, and affective commitment and normative commitment that increase organizational citizenship behavior, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate and continuance commitment that decreases it. (shrink)

Firms worldwide are increasingly required to disclose their carbon emissions due to the environmental damage associated with climate change. Because there has been no previous literature focusing on the determinants of corporate carbon disclosure integrating environmental legitimacy and green innovation, the present study attempted to develop an original framework to fill the research gap. This study explored the influence of environmental legitimacy on corporate carbon disclosure, and investigated the role of green innovation as a mediator. With the samples of Carbon (...) Disclosure Project in China from 2008 to 2012, the results demonstrate that environmental legitimacy significantly negatively influences the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, and that green process innovation mediates the relationship, while green product innovation has no significant mediating effect. It means that environmental legitimacy not only directly affects the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, but also indirectly affects it via green process innovation. Hence, companies must increase both informal and formal mechanisms, i.e., external environmental legitimacy and internal green process innovation, to engage in carbon information disclosure and ensure sustainability. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle has made the famous distinction between intellectual knowing-that and practical knowing-how. Since knowledge in Confucianism is not merely intellectual but also practical, many scholars have argued that such knowledge is knowing-how or, at least, very similar to it. In this essay, focusing on Wang Yangming’s moral knowledge, I shall argue that it is neither knowing-that nor knowing-how, but a third type of knowing, knowing-to. There is a unique feature of knowing-to that is not shared by either knowing-that or (...) knowing-how: a person with knowing-to will act accordingly, while neither knowing-that nor knowing-how, whether separately or combined, will dispose or incline its possessor to act accordingly. (shrink)

Good knowledge management is important for enterprises to maintain competitive advantage; however, the knowledge hiding behavior may hinder this process. Based on the conservation of resources and psychological ownership theories, using a chain intermediary model, this study investigates the effect of justice sensitivity on knowledge hiding through perceived time pressure and territoriality, and further tests the moderating role of territoriality. For the study, we collected 436 questionnaires from China through the Wenjuanxing Sample Service, of which 391 were valid. We then (...) conducted multiple regression analysis and employed the bootstrap method for our tests. The results show that victim sensitivity has a significant effect on perceived time pressure, territoriality, and knowledge hiding, and that a chain mediating effect of perceived time pressure and territoriality is established between justice sensitivity and knowledge hiding. Further, territoriality has a positive moderating effect on perceived time pressure and knowledge hiding, while the mediating effect of perceived time pressure on justice sensitivity and knowledge hiding is also moderated by territoriality. Further, the study offers important practical implications in that enterprises should not blindly pursue results by making employees work excessively overtime. And there should have rationalized regulations in organization to ensure justice. The management should pay close attention to the psychological problems of victim and perpetrator. Instead, enterprises should have a certain degree of control, offer rationales for overtime work, and give high wages to the employees to compensate for their time, thus making the employees feel the worthiness of their overtime work and reducing the probability of engaging in knowledge hiding behaviors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a Buddhist treatise from around the fourth century CE there is a very remarkable story which serves as a thought experiment calling us to question the nature of self and the identity of persons. Lost in Sanskrit, the passage is fortunately preserved in a Chinese translation, the Dà zhìdù lùn. We here present the first reliable translation directly from the Classical Chinese, and discuss the philosophical significance of the story in its historical and literary context. We emphasise the (...) philosophical importance of embedding the story in two framing narratives, and demonstrate that the story taps a range of intuitions, and indeed fears, about the survival of the self which have also played a large role in the history of the topic in the West, and which continue to be of great contemporary concern. (shrink)

As the essence of livestream e-commerce is social commerce, building a livestream brand community and attracting brand followers are the key aspects to achieving sustained revenue. For many companies, inviting celebrities has become a shortcut to attract new followers. Considering the unsustainability and high cost of the celebrity host mode, some companies switched to using their own branded broadcasters to attract followers. However, as branded broadcasters lack a fan base, choosing the suitable broadcaster type has become a challenge in livestream (...) e-commerce. The motivation of consumers to follow brand livestream accounts is mainly to obtain potential value by embedding them in social networks. Therefore, based on motive theory, this research explores how different broadcaster types affect consumer’s intention to follow a livestream brand community. Results from the analysis of secondary data from livestream platforms and two laboratory experiments reveal that celebrities contribute more to consumer’s intention to follow than branded broadcasters, and utilitarian products can strengthen the effect of branded broadcasters on attracting potential followers. Moreover, branded broadcasters can promote consumer’s intention to follow a livestream brand community by satisfying consumer’s need for informational value during utilitarian product evaluation. This research analyzes the differential effects of different types of broadcasters on livestream brand community building. The findings can deepen the understanding of the consumer’s behavior of following brand livestream communities and provide companies with suggestions on broadcaster selection in livestream e-commerce. (shrink)

Background Moral courage is a recognized virtue. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the master’s students of nursing (MSNs) in China have shown tenacious moral courage. Objective This study elaborates on the moral courage of Chinese MSNs through their experiences of volunteering during the pandemic. Research Design Descriptive qualitative, interview-based. Participants and Research Context Participants were nursing postgraduate students who participated in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic selected by purposeful sampling. The sample size was determined by (...) data saturation, which was reached with 10 participants. Data were analyzed using a deductive method of content analysis. Because of the isolation policy, telephone interviews were adopted. Ethical considerations After obtaining the approval of the ethical institution of the author’s school (No. 138, 30 August 2021), verbal consent was obtained before the interview with the participants. All data were processed anonymously and confidentially. In addition, we recruited participants through MSNs’ counselors, and obtained their phone numbers with their permission. Results Data analysis resulted in 15 subcategories that were subsequently grouped into 3 major categories including proceed without hesitation, the outcome of practicing moral courage, and develop and maintain moral courage. Conclusion This qualitative study is based on the special background of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the MSNs in China have shown tenacious moral courage in the work of epidemic prevention and control. Five factors led them to take action without hesitation, and six possible outcomes followed. Lastly, this study provides some suggestions for nurses and nursing students to enhance their moral courage. To better develop and support moral courage in the future, it is necessary to use different methods and multidisciplinary approaches to study moral courage. (shrink)

John Harris recently argues that the moral bioenhancement proposed by Persson and Savulescu can damage moral agency by depriving the recipients of their freedom to fall (freedom to make wrongful choices) and therefore should not be pursued. The link Harris makes between moral agency and the freedom to fall, however, implies that all forms of moral enhancement, including moral education, that aim to make the enhancement recipients less likely to “fall” are detrimental to moral agency. In this paper, I present (...) a new moral agency-based critique against the moral bioenhancement program envisaged by Persson and Savulescu. I argue that the irresistible influences exerted by the bioenhancement program harms our capabilities for conducting accurate self-reflection and forming decisions that truly express our will, which subsequently undermine our moral agency. (shrink)

Significant research has been conducted on the influence of entrepreneurial intention on entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurship practice. Similarly, this study aims to explore how creativity plays a mediating role in the influence of personality traits on entrepreneurial intention. As many as 674 valid questionnaires were collected from college students in China, allowing the relationship between personality traits, creativity, and entrepreneurial intention to be analyzed in detail. The following results are found through a series of explorations. First, neuroticism in personality traits (...) has a significant negative impact on entrepreneurial intention, while conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion have a significant positive impact. Second, neuroticism has a significant negative impact on creativity, while conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion have a significant positive impact. Third, creativity has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial intention, it has a partial mediating role between neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, and entrepreneurial intention along with a complete mediating role between openness and entrepreneurial intention. The research results further provide a reference value for the improvement and optimization of entrepreneurial practice. (shrink)

The study of expertise is difficult to do in a laboratory environment due to the challenge of finding people at different skill levels and the lack of time for participants to acquire mastery. In this paper, we report on two studies that analyze naturalistic gameplay data using cohort analysis to better understand how skill relates to practice and habit. Two cohorts are analyzed, each from two different games. Our work follows skill progression through 7 months of Halo matches for a (...) holistic perspective, but also explores low-level in-game habits when controlling game units in StarCraft 2. Players who played moderately frequently without long breaks were able to gain skill the most efficiently. What set the highest performers apart was their ability to gain skill more rapidly and without dips compared to other players. At the beginning of matches, top players habitually warmed up by selecting and re-selecting groups of units repeatedly in a meaningless cycle. They exhibited unique routines during their play that aided them when under pressure. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Husserl’s view on the normativity of intentionality and its neutralization. Husserl reaches his mature, normative-transcendental conception of intentionality by way of critical engagement with Brentano’s position. As opposed to Brentano, Husserl does not conceive of the normativity of intentionality as deriving from the more basic character of polar opposition. Normativity comes first and it is an original, though not universal determination of intentionality which is expressed in the identificatory achievement of constitution. Even where it is (...) absent, this absence makes itself felt since neutrality is never the simple omission of normativity but essentially its neutralizing modification. The discussion of neutrality-modification in Ideas I is, however, problematic, as I will argue by drawing upon Husserl’s research manuscripts. I aim to show that neutralization is not a single but a group of closely related intentional modifications and that ways of neutralization are best conceptualized as changes of attitude. I will then examine phantasy and aesthetic consciousness as involving two such neutralizing attitudes. What they have in common is a spirit of playfulness in contrast to the serious commitment to truth that characterizes original intentionality. The neutralization of normativity takes place in play. (shrink)

Daniel Bell's The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy is a significant contribution to contemporary political theory. I am very much in sympathy with his ideal of political meritocracy, although I would disagree with him on the degree to which it is realized or practiced in China today; for me, the reality is as distant from Bell's ideal of political meritocracy, if I understand it correctly, as it is from democracy. However, in the present comment, I will (...) not exploit this disagreement. Instead, I will try to make two friendly amendments to his political meritocracy as an ideal, with which I have a lot of agreements. In the Introduction to the book, Bell discloses that "I developed an... (shrink)

Extant contextualist theories have relied on the mechanism of pragmatically driven modulation to explain the way non-indexical expressions take on different interpretations in different contexts. In this paper I argue that a modulation-based contextualist semantics is untenable with respect to non-ambiguous expressions whose invariant meaning fails to determine a unique literal interpretation, such as ‘lawyer’ ‘musician’ ‘book’ and ‘game’. The invariant meaning of such an expression corresponds to a range of closely related and equally basic interpretations, none of which can (...) be distinguished as the literal interpretation. Moreover, what counts as a literal interpretation as opposed to a non-literal one is arguably vague. The nonuniqueness of the literal interpretation and the vagueness in the literal/non-literal divide doubly challenge a modulation-based semantics, for modulation is supposed to operate on a unique literal interpretation to generate a clearly non-literal interpretation. Lastly I contend that non-ambiguous expressions which lack determinate literal interpretation are amenable to a Radical Contextualist semantics, according to which the invariant meaning of such an expression directs its interpretation to congruent background information in context. Thereby, these expressions exhibit semantically driven context sensitivity without displaying indexicality. (shrink)

The concept of integrity appears in many arguments and theories in business ethics and organizational behavior where it plays multiple roles. It has been shown to have desirable organizational outcomes and is held as important by the academic and practitioner alike. Yet despite its prominence there are a variety of approaches to defining and conceptualizing it and little existent theory to explain its nature. We offer integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) as a framework that can anchor integrity in ethical theory (...) and also encompass aspects of integrity such as wholeness, consistency, and authenticity. In addition we show how ISCT can resolve some of the challenges to definitions of integrity that have been raised in the literature and hence we provide some suggestions for future academic research and suggestions for the practitioner. (shrink)

To demonstrate how green innovation effectively occurs, this study examines the effects of green intellectual capital on GI from the perspective of green supply chain integration. Based on a natural-resource-based view and knowledge-based view, the authors constructed an intermediary model of GIC-GSCI-GI, and analyzed the effects of green absorptive ability and relationship learning ability as moderators. An empirical survey of 328 Chinese manufacturing companies was conducted. Our results indicate that three dimensions of GIC positively impact GI. The mediating effects of (...) internal and external GSCI exist in the relationship between GIC and GI. The moderating effects of GAA and RLA in these effects were also verified. Our study provides further empirical evidence for the relationship between GIC and GI, highlights the effects of companies’ internal and external abilities on GI, and suggests new ways and implementation contexts for GI. (shrink)

Given the current shortage of kindergarten teachers, this study examines the relationship between empowering leadership and job satisfaction among kindergarten teachers in China from the perspective of their job characteristics and the Chinese cultural context. The participants were 557 Chinese kindergarten female teachers whose average number of years of experience was 2.82. They completed a self-report survey regarding empowering leadership, vigor, affective commitment, and job satisfaction. The study results show that vigor and affective commitment could mediate the relationship between empowering (...) leadership and job satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the findings of this study in depth. At the same time, we suggest that administrators should focus on the empowering leadership of Chinese kindergarten teachers, strive to increase their level of dynamism, and finally, strengthen the emotional connection between the organization and the Chinese kindergarten teachers. Thus, we suggest that educational administrators should empower kindergarten teachers more, rather than allowing them to be mere enforcers. In addition, how to enhance the individual dynamics of early childhood teachers and their emotional connection to the organization may also be something for educational administrators to consider. (shrink)

According to experimental philosophers, the diversity and sensitivity of intuitions have posed a severe threat to the traditional philosophical methodology, which relies extensively on intuitions triggered by thought experiments. However, defenders of traditional armchair philosophical methodology argue that experimental philosophers misunderstand the importance of intuitions for philosophy. What philosophers genuinely rely on are arguments, which provide a reliable foundation for their judgments on thought experiments. However, a recent cross-cultural experiment conducted by Wysocki (2017) indicates that arguments do not affect the (...) judgments about Gettier cases as philosophers once expected. That poses a challenge to those philosophers who contend that judgments are based on arguments. In this paper, we expand the experimental investigation of the effect of arguments on judgments about thought experiments. We report the result of three experiments in which eleven thought experiments drawn from multiple philosophical subdisciplines were used. It turns out that arguments have significant impacts on Chinese participants’ judgments in response to most of these thought experiments. These results present new resources for defending the traditional methodology but also bring new challenges. (shrink)

In functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, object selectivity is defined as a higher neural response to an object category than other object categories. Importantly, object selectivity is widely considered as a neural signature of a functionally-specialized area in processing its preferred object category in the human brain. However, the behavioral significance of the object selectivity remains unclear. In the present study, we used the individual differences approach to correlate participants’ face selectivity in the face-selective regions with their behavioral performance in (...) face recognition measured outside the scanner in a large sample of healthy adults. Face selectivity was defined as the z score of activation with the contrast of faces versus non-face objects, and the face recognition ability was indexed as the normalized residual of the accuracy in recognizing previously-learned faces after regressing out that for non-face objects in an old/new memory task. We found that the participants with higher face selectivity in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the occipital face area (OFA), but not in the posterior part of the superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), possessed higher face recognition ability. Importantly, the association of face selectivity in the FFA and face recognition ability cannot be accounted for by FFA response to objects or behavioral performance in object recognition, suggesting that the association is domain-specific. Finally, the association is reliable, confirmed by the replication from another independent participant group. In sum, our finding provides empirical evidence on the validity of using object selectivity as a neural signature in defining object-selective regions in the human brain. (shrink)

Over the span of nearly 10 years, the social work labor force grew from 0.2 million to approximately 1.2 million in China. Despite these increases, studies have shown social workers in China are also experiencing equally high burnout rates. For this analysis, we collected data from 537 social workers based in Guangzhou, China. We used the job demands and resources theory, to examine the relations between JD-R and burnout and whether mindfulness practice could reduce any such burnout. Our results suggest (...) JD-R affects social workers’ burnout through both health and motivation impairment. High job demands were linked to high burnout while high job resources were linked to a reduction in burnout. Formal and informal MP were associated with low burnout amongst social workers. The significant interaction between JD and MP also suggests that MP can reduce burnout for social workers with high JD. The findings call for using MP to be used to shield social workers from the effects of increasing JD and to prevent an increase of burnout amongst Chinese social workers. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the psychological mechanisms underlying the relation between college students’ post-traumatic growth and their entrepreneurial intentions in the post-COVID-19 era. Using the post-traumatic growth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, prosocial tendency, and entrepreneurial intention scales, we tested 690 valid samples of Chinese undergraduates. The results revealed that post-traumatic growth of college students in the post-COVID-19 era will have a significant and positive effect on their entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, the results indicated that students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and prosocial tendencies play a (...) partial mediation role between post-traumatic growth and entrepreneurial intentions in the post-COVID-19 era and that there is a chain mediating effect between students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and prosocial tendencies. This study provides valuable insights into the influence of post-traumatic growth on entrepreneurial intentions among college students in the post-COVID-19 era and suggests that colleges and universities can improve students’ entrepreneurial intentions by adopting measures to foster their post-traumatic growth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and prosocial tendencies. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore two questions:(1) Is symmetrical communication in public relations practice inherently ethical?(2) Does symmetrical communication contribute to public relations effectiveness and organizational effectiveness? Three surveys are undertaken to test seven research hypotheses for the purpose of cross-validating research findings. The results suggest that symmetrical communication is inherently ethical. Moreover, symmetrical communication indeed contributes to several performance measures, which include positive market performance, overall organizational effectiveness, conflict resolution, crisis management, favorable organizational reputation, and positive (...) media exposure, with the last two measures only partially supported. (shrink)

We review recent progress in the stem cell biology of the respiratory system, and discuss its scientific and translational ramifications. Several studies have defined novel stem cells in postnatal lung and airways and implicated their roles in tissue homeostasis and repair. In addition, significant advances in the generation of respiratory epithelium from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) now provide a novel and powerful platform for understanding lung development, modeling pulmonary diseases, and implementing drug screening. Finally, breakthroughs have been made in the (...) generation of decellularized lung matrices that can serve as a scaffold for repopulation with respiratory cells derived from either postnatal or PSCs. These studies are a critical step forward towards the still distant goal of stem cell‐based regenerative medicine for diseases of lung and airways. (shrink)

Background Moral courage is a recognized virtue. Researchers have focused on various aspects of nursing moral courage, such as its conceptualization and influencing factors. Within these studies, various literature reviews have been conducted, but to our knowledge, bibliometric mapping has not been utilized. Aim This article aims to analyze the production of literature within nursing moral courage research. Research Design To investigate publication patterns, we employed VOSviewer and CiteSpace software, focusing on publication dynamics, prolific research entities, and most cited articles. (...) Additionally, we forecasted future research trends. Ethical considerations In our study, ethical review was not required. Results A total of 105 information sources were identified in the WoS database. Overall, there has been a significant increase in research volume after 2020. The most prolific countries are the United States, Finland, and China, while the most prolific source title is “Nursing Ethics.” Keywords are also related to moral dilemmas and ethics. However, there are further improvements needed in international cooperation. Conclusions The results proposed in this paper can serve as a starting point for comprehensive or systematic literature reviews and seek more detailed data, information, and knowledge in the field of nursing moral courage. It can enable outsiders to quickly understand research on nursing moral courage, whether for in-depth exploration or simply to facilitate more effective collaboration with nursing ethics experts. (shrink)

This article explores the use of model organisms in studying the cognitive phenomenon of decision-making. Drawing on the framework of biological control to develop a skeletal conception of decision-making, we show that two core features of decision-making mechanisms can be identified by studying model organisms, such as E. coli, jellyfish, C. elegans, lamprey, and so on. First, decision mechanisms are distributed and heterarchically structured. Second, they depend heavily on chemical information processing, such as that involving neuromodulators. We end by discussing (...) the implications for studying distinctively human decision-making. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Prior Analytics is probably the earliest existing systematic philosophical writing on a syllogistic system and theory of logic. In this work, Aristotle introduces the categorical syllogistic, consisting of three figures and fourteen valid moods. This paper proposes that Aristotle distinguishes a general notion of syllogisms from a more technical notion of syllogisms. Syllogisms that belong to the categorical syllogistic fall under Aristotle’s technical notion of syllogisms that must satisfy two conditions: (1) a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, and (...) (2) the premises derive a conclusion that necessarily follows from them in regard to attributing the major extreme to the minor. (shrink)

In this article, I present a neo-Confucian answer, by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, to the question, "Why should I be moral?" I argue that this answer is better than some representative answers in the Western philosophical tradition. According to the Chengs, one should be moral because it is a joy to perform moral actions. Sometimes one finds it a pain, instead of a joy, to perform moral actions only because one lacks the necessary genuine moral knowledge—knowledge that is accessible (...) to every common person as long as one makes the effort to learn. One should make the effort to learn such knowledge—to seek joy in performing moral actions—because to be moral is a distinguishing mark of being human. This neo-Confucian answer seems to be egoistic, as its conception of motivation for morality is based on self-interest: to seek one's own joy. However, since it emphasizes that one's true self-interest is to seek joy in things uniquely human, which is to be moral, self-interest and morality become identical; the more a person seeks one's self-interest, the more moral the person is, and vice versa. (shrink)

In longitudinal cohort studies involving large populations over extended periods, informed consent entails numerous urgent challenges. This paper explores challenges regarding informed consent in long‐term, large‐scale longitudinal cohort studies based on the longitudinal and dynamic nature of such research. It analyzes and evaluates widely recognized broad consent and dynamic consent methods, highlighting limitations concerning their ability to adapt to evolving research objectives and participant perspectives. This paper discusses trust‐based informed consent and emphasizes the needs to establish and maintain trust with (...) research participants and to balance information disclosure with respect for participants' autonomy. Informed consent in long‐term studies is an evolving process that must adapt to changing research environments. Based on participant trust, researchers should observe and assess potential research risks. Finally, the paper recommends enhancing institutional credibility, implementing reconsent procedures, and ensuring robust ethical oversight to safeguard participants' rights despite the complexity of modern biomedical research. (shrink)

Robert Sparrow recently argues that state-driven moral bioenhancement is morally problematic because it inevitably invites moral perfectionism. While sharing Sparrow’s worry about state-driven moral bioenhancement, I argue that his anti-perfectionism argument is too strong to offer useful normative guidance. That is, if we reject state-driven moral bioenhancement because it cannot remain neutral between different conceptions of the good, we might have to conclude that all forms of moral enhancement program ought not be made compulsory, including the least controversial and most (...) popular state-driven program: compulsory (moral) education. -/- In this paper, I argue that instead, the spirit of Sparrow’s worry should be recast in the language of the capability approach – an approach that strives to enhance people’s capabilities to develop their own conceptions of the good by restricting itself from endorsing thick conceptions of the good. The distinction made regarding thick and thin conceptions of the good helps better capture sentiments against state-driven bioenhancement programs without falling prey to the issues I raise against Sparrow’s anti-perfectionist arguments. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that a liberal state has a general duty to protect its people from undue health risks. However, the unprecedented emergent measures against the COVID-19 pandemic taken by governments worldwide give rise to questions regarding the extent to which this duty may be used to justify suspending a vaccine rollout on marginal safety grounds. -/- In this chapter, I use the case of vaccination to argue that while a liberal state has a general duty to protect its (...) people’s health, there is a limit to the measures this duty can be used to justify. First, I argue that since every available option involves different risks and benefits, the incommensurability of the involved risks and benefits forbids the prioritisation of a particular vaccine. Second, I argue that given epistemic limitations and uncertainty, policies that favour certain vaccines are not only epistemically ill-founded but also morally unacceptable. I conclude that in a highly uncertain situation such as the unfolding pandemic, the duty a liberal state ought to uphold is to properly communicate the knowns and unknowns to the general public and help people decide which option to choose for themselves. I call this duty the duty to facilitate risk-taking. (shrink)

The era of sustainable transformation has witnessed an increase in corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure waves. Using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2021 as a sample, this study adopted textual analysis and machine-learning techniques to analyze ESG reports and explore the imitation behavior of ESG disclosures in emerging Chinese markets for the first time. The results show imitation behavior exists in corporate ESG disclosures from the perspective of group association. Regarding the imitation object, enterprises tend to (...) choose the peer average level as a reference rather than the best enterprise in the same industry, which reveals the inherent law that enterprises' ESG disclosures are satisfied with compliance rather than championship. In terms of effects, the ESG-mimetic isomorphic pressure has no incremental information effect but has an efficiency optimization effect. Furthermore, the imitation intensity and impact effects of ESG disclosure behavior exhibit heterogeneity owing to differences in properties, sales growth rates, and external attention. This study expands the motivation for corporate ESG disclosure behavior and enriches the empirical evidence for institutional isomorphism. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that a liberal state has a general duty to protect its people from undue health risks. However, the unprecedented emergent measures against the COVID-19 pandemic taken by governments worldwide give rise to questions regarding the extent to which this duty may be used to justify suspending a vaccine rollout on marginal safety grounds. -/- In this chapter, I use the case of vaccination to argue that while a liberal state has a general duty to protect its (...) people’s health, there is a limit to the measures this duty can be used to justify. First, I argue that since every available option involves different risks and benefits, the incommensurability of the involved risks and benefits forbids the prioritisation of a particular vaccine. Second, I argue that given epistemic limitations and uncertainty, policies that favour certain vaccines are not only epistemically ill-founded but also morally unacceptable. I conclude that in a highly uncertain situation such as the unfolding pandemic, the duty a liberal state ought to uphold is to properly communicate the knowns and unknowns to the general public and help people decide which option to choose for themselves. I call this duty the duty to facilitate risk-taking. (shrink)

This article argued the following points. Firstly, the challenge posed by artificial intelligence (AI) to the essence of humanity is serious. Secondly, it is important to analyse the external context and internal dynamics of the history of interaction between knowledge and power. Thirdly, it is necessary to trace the intellectual history of humanity becoming god-like. Finally, by combining Martin Luther’s anthropology with insights from social science and philosophical theology, this article advocated for guiding human beings to use their capabilities for (...) good rather than evil through ethical and legal constraints. Efforts in Chinese context should be made to resolve the conflict between humanity’s pursuit of omnipotence and its failure to develop towards complete goodness, so as to avoid catastrophic consequences for humanity.Contribution: The present article’s special contribution was the theological reflection referring to AI’s challenges to the essence of humanity from Luther’s anthropology in Chinese context. The conflict between omnipotence and omnibenevolence has been highlighted as the key problem which human beings need to solve in the face of AI’s challenge. (shrink)