The nine essays in this volume explore the foundations of environmental ethics in the Western philosophy, as well as from the perspectives of Christianity, Islam, Daoism, and Buddhism.

This article examines whether and to what extent Confucianism as a resilient Chinese cultural tradition can be used as a sound basis of business practice and management model for Chinese corporations in the twenty-first century. Using the core elements of Confucianism, the article constructs a notion of a Confucian Firm with its concepts of the moral person ( Junzi ), core human morality ( ren, yi, li ) and relationships ( guanxi ), as well as benign social structure (harmony), articulated (...) in corporate and organizational terms. The basic character of the Confucian Firm is described, and its philosophical and cultural foundation is critically assessed with respect to its moral legitimacy and relevant to today’s China. China’s recent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) development is a high profile response to global business ethics concerns. Efforts have been made to emulate and develop good business practice fashioned in CSR norms and visions. The so-called “human-based” and “virtue-based” business practices rooted in local cultural heritage have been touted as a Chinese response to this problem. This investigation is particularly relevant in the context of the increasingly prominence of the Chinese corporations (China Inc.) in the wake of the rise of China as a global power. How relevant is Confucianism to the building of a modern Chinese corporation that is willing and able to practice reasonable norms of business ethics? The findings of this discussion, which include the organizational implications of the Confucian familial collectivism, have implications for other Chinese communities (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) where Confucian tradition is endorsed and practiced. (shrink)

I show how the Taoist philosophy, as examplified by both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, is capable of providing a metaphysical foundation for environmental ethics. The Taoist concept of nature, the notions of ontological equality and axiological equality of beings, together with the doctrine of Wu Wei can fulfil, at least in a preliminary way, our purpose. The notion of a minimally coherent ethics is introduced and is shown to be pertinent to the construction of an ethics which bears a (...) close relationship to science. (shrink)

Since China's Reform Era began in 1979, corporations of all shapes and sizes mushroomed in the economic landscape. Among these companies, a few have distinguished themselves by their unique corporate cultures and financial performance. The Chinese state–owned enterprises (SOEs) are notorious for their inefficiency, conservatism, bloated bureaucracy, and obsoleteness. However, a few good SOEs stand out as corporations of excellence with commitment to business ethics. Very little study has been done on SOE corporate cultures and business ethics, especially in the (...) western literature. This paper provides an insight into one such organisation – the Double Star Group of Qingdao. This paper includes the results of an empirical survey on Double Star's employees’ perception of its corporate culture and business ethics. (shrink)

This book examines Mohism as a movement in early China. To analyze how the Mohists pursued power, the author analyzes nonviolence as a goal and strategy of the Mohist movement, the Mohists' creation of strategic knowledge, and their quest for a personhood that made their activism possible.

The challenge of developing a business ethics in China in response to today's increasing demands of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is examined within the context of recent business scandals, food scare, labor issues, and environmental degradations the country is now experiencing. Two surveys on CSR are reported. This paper reports the recent CSR development in China and oudines the profile of a prospective business ethics for China. The formal constraints and substantive components of this business ethics are proposed against the (...) background of China's cultural and ideological heritage. (shrink)

Those who bear the burdens of injustice and oppression are entitled to act in ways contrary to existing laws and institutions to secure their own entitlements and those of others. This article aims to articulate a Confucian perspective on resistance against injustice. There are reasons for thinking that the notion of resistance is fundamentally at odds with Confucian political thought. In this article, I move beyond this simple conflict/compatibility model and explore the complex relationships between resistance and Confucianism. On one (...) hand, some of Confucianism’s core commitments can be better attained in contemporary societies by allowing resistance; on the other, a Confucian perspective can offer insights into current discussions on the ethics of resistance. (shrink)

The paper presents a program to construct a non-relativistic relational Bohmian theory, that is, a theory of N moving point-like particles that dispenses with space and time as fundamental background structures. The relational program proposed is based on the best-matching framework originally developed by Julian Barbour. In particular, the paper focuses on the conceptual problems that arise when trying to implement such a program. It is argued that pursuing a relational strategy in the Bohmian context leads to a more parsimonious (...) ontology than that of standard Bohmian mechanics without betraying the original motivations for adopting a primitive ontology approach to quantum physics. It is also shown how a relational Bohmian approach might clarify the issue of the timelessness of the dynamics resulting from the quantization of a classical relational system of particles. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly popular in advanced economies in the West. In contrast, CSR awareness in Asia is rather low, both on the corporate and state level. However, recent events have shown that the CSR is receiving more attention by corporations in Asia. Recent development in CSR in Taiwan is one example of such a trend. A 2005 survey on the 700 publicly listed companies in Taiwan on␣CSR has highlighted the current CSR situation. Concurrently, the numbers of (...) corporate scandals and corruption have dramatically increased over the past 6 years. Corporate CSR activities co-existing with pervasive corporate scandals create a phenomenon of contradictions. This article aims to report via the survey findings the current development of business ethics in corporate Taiwan; and to interpret the findings in context of Taiwan’s business ethos, especially its Confucian familism and crony capitalism. (shrink)

This article contributes to philosophical reflections on public health law by drawing on virtue jurisprudence, which rests on the straightforward observation that a political community and its laws will inevitably shape the character of its officials and subjects, and that an excellent character is indispensable to fulfilment. Thus, the law is properly set to encourage virtue and discourage vice. This opens a new perspective onto the ultimate purpose of public health law that is human flourishing. The means of pursuing this (...) end is to entrust public health powers to officials to virtuously serve the common good, of which population health is one of its most important constituents, within the bounds of the law of the land. This article calls for the adoption of a Prudent Public Health Official standard into the law, in order to cultivate prudent, just, courageous and temperate characters in officialdom. Interestingly, this standard already chimes with certain pre-existing core principles of public health judicial doctrine in the USA, the European Union and the UK. (shrink)

The ability to represent emotional experiences in a precise fashion with language, termed emotional granularity, is related to a number of beneficial outcomes. However, the emotion granularity construct and operationalization are rooted in the lens of so-called Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies that focus on emotions as a mental-state phenomena. Using evidence from multiple non-WEIRD societies, we illustrate that people's everyday vernacular often emphasizes bodily over, or in addition to, mental states. This suggests that granularity focused only (...) on mental state language may limit our ability to operationalize this construct in a culturally valid manner. To overcome this limitation, we propose capturing “experiential” granularity and a concept model on how it may link to regulation and health. (shrink)

This article will explore whether the law should allow people with anorexia nervosa to refuse nutrition and hydration with special reference to the English decision in Re E (Medical Treatment: Anorexia). It argues that the judge in that case made the correct decision in holding that the patient, who suffered from severe anorexia nervosa, lacked capacity to make valid advance directives under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 of the United Kingdom, and that medical procedures that are apparently against her wishes (...) should be carried out for the sake of preserving her life. The law should generally not permit patients with anorexia nervosa to decline nutrition and hydration, precisely because their autonomous ability to make such decisions has been substantially circumscribed by this psychiatric condition. (shrink)

States are not only claiming the right to grant or deny entry to their territories but also enforcing this right against non-citizens in ways that cause significant harm to these individuals. In this article, I argue that endorsing the presumptive right to restrict immigration does not settle the question of when or how it may permissibly inflict harm on individuals to enforce this right. I examine three distinct justifications for causing harm to individuals. First, the justification of defensive harm holds (...) that harming individuals is morally permissible when they pose an unjustified threat to others. Second, the justification of protecting property states that harming individuals is morally permissible when they pose an unjustified threat to others’ property interests. Third, I consider the state punishment justification, which maintains that harming individuals is morally permissible when punishment is an appropriate response to their previous conduct. I conclude that any immigration enforcement measure that involves lethal force or the infliction of severe bodily harm is morally impermissible, whether it is used to defend the state or its property. Moreover, criminal sanctions for immigration violations are difficult to justify. (shrink)

Transnational trade is at the heart of the global economy. Trade relations often transcend both ideological divides and regime type. Trading with autocratic regimes, however, raises significant moral issues. In their recent book, On Trade Justice, Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner argue that trade with autocratic regimes is morally permissible only under a very limited set of circumstances. This article discusses the morally permissible trade policies that liberal democracies ought to adopt toward autocratic regimes. Liberal democracies trading with autocratic regimes (...) have a special obligation to improve the human rights conditions in these regimes. This duty is partly based on their complicity in human rights violations and on the fact that the democracies benefit from these violations in their trading relationships. Their responsibility goes beyond the improvement of labor conditions and requires various strategies such as imposing trade sanctions and export controls, and making trade conditional on human rights performance. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper gives an analytical synopsis of the problem of developing medical ethics in the early half of the 1990s in China, as perceived by Chinese scholars and medical professionals interested in medical ethics. The views captured and analyzed here were expressed in one of the two major journals on medical ethics in China: Chinese Medical Ethics. The economic reform unleashed profound changes in Chinese society, including in the medical field, creating irregularities and improprieties in the profession. Furthermore, the market (...) reform also created new values that were in tension with existing values. In this transitional period, Chinese medical ethicists saw the need to rebuild medical morality for the new era. Using the code of conduct promulgated by the Chinese Ministry of Health in 1989 as a basis, assessment and e ducation aspects of the institutionalization of medical ethics are dis‐ cussed. In addition to institutional problems of institutionalising ethics, there are philosophical and methodological issues that are not easy to solve. After all, to institutionalize medical ethics is no easy task for a country as old and as big as China. Chinese medical ethicists seem ready to confront these difficulties in their effort to develop medical ethics in Reform China. (shrink)

In this book, Kevin Ip articulates and defends an egalitarian conception of global distributive justice grounded on the value of equality as a normative ideal of how human relations should be conducted. Arguing that relationships of equality, rather than those characterized by domination or exploitation, are a requirement for a just system, Ip spells out the real-world implications of this approach. Ip defends the ideal of equality against the diverse objections which have been brought to bear, and the responsibilities we (...) bear in our aspirations towards global justice. (shrink)

Since China opened herself up to the world in the late 70s, privately-owned companies of different trades began to emerge along side with the state-owned enterprises. Among these successful private enterprises, a few have distinguished themselves from the rest by their distinct corporate cultures. Despite an increasing number of research on private enterprises in China, little has been done to unveil the ethical aspects of their corporate cultures. This paper attempts to fill the gap. This paper focuses on one company (...) named the Weizhi Group in Xian. The Weizhi culture is indeed the basis of a company which I refer to as "virtuous corporation". An empirical survey on the values and perceptions of the employees of Weizhi Group was conducted to probe the values and perceptions of business ethics of its employees. (shrink)

This paper aims to bring a hidden “metaphysical” horizon in Husserl’s famous text “The Origin of Geometry” to light. This will be achieved in three steps: first, by analyzing the two essential manners in which the problem of history is thematized in this text, namely, both as a “basic problem” and as a “limit problem”; second, by highlighting the direct connection of this twofold problematization of history to Husserl’s own concept of metaphysics; and third, by exploring the relation between the (...) “metaphysical” limit-problem of history implicit in the “Geometry” text and the explicit historical reflections in the Crisis itself. In so doing, Husserl’s concept of metaphysics, which remains largely unknown, and the thematization of history as a “limit problem” in phenomenology, which gives expression to the fundamental engagement of phenomenology in history, can be illuminated through each other. (shrink)

Humans and other species depend on the planet’s well-being to survive and flourish. The health of the planet and its ecosystems is under threat from anthropogenic climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. The promotion of planetary health against entrenched degradation of nature urgently requires ethical guidance. Using an ecocentric virtue jurisprudence approach, this article argues that the highest end of safeguarding planetary health is to secure the flourishing of the Earth community, of which the flourishing of humanity is but one (...) component. The article demonstrates how law, despite its historic role in facilitating our present planetary crisis, has an untapped potential to redeem itself by promoting planetary flourishing through the creation of conditions conducive to the practice of moral virtues, which can help meet the challenges of the Anthropocene. Once given an ecocentric interpretation, the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, courage and moderation, as well as their subvirtues, can justify or produce legal structures that address everything from the human right to a healthy environment to the rights of nature. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how business ethics is connected with the well-being of a nation. There has been active research in the well-being of nations across the globe in the last two decades, resulting in substantial theoretical progress and a wealth of empirical data on the well-beings of different nations across the globe. Dissatisfied with the conventional measures such as the GDP, well-being researchers have been developing alternative measures that can better capture the true (...) nature of the well-being of a country. The paper begins by examining why the GDP is inadequate as a good measure of the well-being of a country. Major alternative proposals on well-being or similar measures are summarized. Objective well-being of a nation refers to the conditions of well-being of a country. Subjective well-being of a nation is the perceptions of its citizens with regard to their satisfaction with the major conditions of living in that nation. The paper presents two central arguments leading to the conclusion that business ethics is an integral part of the well-being of a country. The first argument utilizes the concept of workplace well-being to establish the linkage. The second argument uses evidence from a recent survey of the perceptions of Taiwanese people on business ethics in relation to the well-being of a nation. The paper also reveals that common values tie the two together at a deeper level. (shrink)

States all over the world have reacted to COVID-19 with quarantines of entire cities, provinces, and even nations. Previous studies and preliminary evidence from current lockdowns suggest that emergency measures protecting the public’s physical health by dislocating individuals, families, and social networks could well be causing a devastating public health crisis of mental ill-health in the months and years to come. This article is the first to take a public mental health ethics perspective in examining these lockdowns, the lodestar of (...) which is the right to mental health, rooted in the concept of human dignity. Even the strictest lockdowns are not necessarily unethical but are prone to damage mental health disproportionately, with vulnerable and disadvantaged populations being at particular risk. (shrink)

BackgroundIn its 2015 decision in Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom overruled the long-standing, paternalistic prudent doctor standard of care in favour of a new reasonable patient standard which obligates doctors to make their patients aware of all material risks of the recommended treatment and of any reasonable alternative treatment. This landmark judgment has been of interest to the rest of the common law world. A judicial trend of invoking Montgomery to impose more stringent (...) requirements on doctors is discernible in subsequent decisions since then.Main bodyIn this narrative review, without questioning the idea that properly informed patients should play a more active role in procedures affecting their own health in furtherance of their autonomy, safety, and consumer rights, we identify and analyse, with the aid of realistic clinical thought experiments, three practical conundrums that the Montgomery standard may inflict on the daily work of doctors, unfairly exposing them to arbitrary legal risks.ConclusionsThese conundrums pertain to the ascertainment of the risks that must be disclosed to the patient under the test of ‘materiality’; the legal uncertainty as to the scope of the exceptions; and the actual ability of doctors to cope with the pressures of time. These conundrums offer ripe opportunities to rethink the proper role of judicially developed medical law in modern health care practice. (shrink)

The practice of critical care medicine has long been a difficult task for most critical care physicians in the densely populated city of Hong Kong, where we face limited resources and a limited number of intensive care beds. Our triage decisions are largely based on the potential of functional reversibility of the patients. Provision of graded care beds may help to relieve some of the demands on the intensive care beds. Decisions to forego futile medical treatment are frequently physician-guided family-based (...) decisions, which is quite contrary to the Western focus on patient autonomy. However, as people acquire knowledge about health care and they become more aware of individual rights, our critical care doctors will be able to narrow the gaps between the dif ferent concepts of medical ethics among our professionals as well as in our society. An open and caring attitude from our intensivists will be important in minimizing the cross-cultural conflict on the complex issue of medical futility. (shrink)

The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. The Posthuman starts by exploring the extent to which a post-humanist move displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather (...) than perceiving this situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, Braidotti argues that the posthuman helps us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities. Braidotti then analyzes the escalating effects of post-anthropocentric thought, which encompass not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria. These dislocations induced by globalized cultures and economies enable a critique of anthropocentrism, but how reliable are they as indicators of a sustainable future? The Posthuman concludes by considering the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities. Braidotti outlines new forms of cosmopolitan neo-humanism that emerge from the spectrum of post-colonial and race studies, as well as gender analysis and environmentalism. The challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment. (shrink)

Posthuman ethics -- Great ephemeral tattooed skin -- Art: inhuman ecstasy -- Animalities: ethics and absolute abolition -- Wonder of Teras -- Mystic queer -- Vitalistic ethics: an end to necrophilosophy -- After life.

Posthuman, all-too-human -- The posthuman condition -- Posthuman subjects -- Posthuman knowledge production -- The critical posthumanities -- How to do posthuman thinking -- On affirmative ethics -- The inexhaustible.

Posthuman affirmative ethics relies upon a fluid, nomadic conception of the ethical subject who develops affective, material and immaterial connections to multiple others. Our purpose in this paper is to consider what posthuman affirmative business ethics would look like, and to reflect on the shift in thinking and practice this would involve. The need for a revised understanding of human–animal relations in business ethics is amplified by crises such as climate change and pandemics that are related to ecologically (...) destructive business practices such as factory farming. In this analysis, we use feminist speculative fiction as a resource for reimagination and posthuman ethical thinking. By focusing on three ethical movements experienced by a central character named Toby in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we show how she is continually becoming through affective, embodied encounters with human and nonhuman others. In the discussion, we consider the vulnerability that arises from openness to affect which engenders heightened response-ability to and with, rather than for, multiple others. This expanded concept of subjectivity enables a more relational understanding of equality that is urgently needed in order to respond affirmatively to posthuman futures. (shrink)

The Posthuman Child combats institutionalised ageist practices in primary, early childhood and teacher education. Grounded in a critical posthumanist perspective on the purpose of education, it provides a genealogy of psychology, sociology and philosophy of childhood in which dominant figurations of child and childhood are exposed as positioning child as epistemically and ontologically inferior. Entangled throughout this book are practical and theorised examples of philosophical work with student teachers, teachers, other practitioners and children (aged 3-11) from South Africa and (...) Britain. These engage arguments about how children are routinely marginalised, discriminated against and denied, especially when the child is also female, black, lives in poverty and whose home language is not English. The book makes a distinctive contribution to the decolonisation of childhood discourses. Underpinned by good quality picturebooks and other striking images, the book's radical proposal for transformation is to reconfigure the child as rich, resourceful and resilient through relationships with (non) human others, and explores the implications for literary and literacy education, teacher education, curriculum construction, implementation and assessment. It is essential reading for all who research, work and live with children. (shrink)

Wennemann argues that the traditional concept of personhood may be fruitfully applied to the ethical challenge we face in a posthuman age. The book posits that biologically non-human persons like robots, computers, or aliens are a theoretical possibility but that we do not know if they are a real possibility.

This special issue of ‘Sophia’ aims to reflect upon future evolutions of religions and their related narratives and imaginaries from a critical and generative understanding of our ancient sources. Bodies are locations of creative power and symbolic proliferation. Cyborgian, transhuman, and posthuman embodiments are going to generate visions of the divine in tune with such an epistemic shift, by addressing questions such as: can God be represented as a cyborg? Could robots and avatars be prophets? Is internet a suitable (...) setting for a posthuman theophany? This special issue articulates within the frame of a relational ontological perspective, according to which the notion of the divine evolves, as much as human and non-human persons do. In this evolutionary scenario, the representation of the divine realm may shift from era to era, adapting to new natural-cultural formations. This special issue argues that the posthuman paradigm shift will be followed by a symbolic turn in religious imaginaries as well. (shrink)

Posthuman Suffering investigates the core assumptions of posthumanist discourse via philosophy, cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory, and close textual and filmic readings of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Don DeLillo's White Noise and Steven Spielberg's film, AI: Artificial Intelligence, bringing the more ontological and epistemological implications of posthumanism to the forefront. In the age of technology our own limitations are legitimized as unique to the human condition.

In order to inspire a vision of biotechnology that affirms human dignity and human flourishing, the author poses questions about virtual reality and the use of robotics in health care. Using the concept of ‘liturgy’ and an anthropology of humans as lovers, the author explores how virtual reality and robotics in health care shape human moral agents, and how such shaping could influence the way we do or do not pursue a ‘posthuman’ future.

In this paper, the author aims to show that transhumanists are confused about their own conception of the posthuman: transhumanists anticipate radical transformation of the human through technology and at the same time assume that the criteria to determine what is “normal” and what is “enhanced” are univocal, both in our present time and in the future. Inspired by Nietzsche’s notion of the Overhuman, the author argues that the slightest “historical and phenomenological sense” discloses copious variations of criteria, both (...) diachronic and synchronic, for what can be considered “normal” and “enhanced.” Radical transformation through technology does not simply enable us to become “stronger,” “smarter,” or “healthier,” but it can and often will also change the very standard or yardstick with which we measure what counts as “stronger,” “smarter,” or “healthier.” Put yet differently: new and emerging technologies are not neutral means but often bring about different and, from our current perspective, foreign standards for determining what are “normal” and “enhanced” capacities. Since the qualitative meanings of these terms are themselves not fixed, it is unintelligible and too reassuring to simply predict that new technologies will enhance human beings. (shrink)

The posthumanities constitute an affirmative, expanded development of the traditional humanities embedded within the posthuman convergence. Numerous changes impel recognition of wider forms and constituents of conditions no longer nameable simply as human, also implying mature relations to technology and science. The posthuman condition – in fields as diverse as military strategy, health, education and machine learning – brings entities and processes into transversal relation in ways that are normatively neutral but loaded with implications. Working in this condition (...) is a task of the posthumanities. Being transversal implies risk. One such risk is the unexpected consequence. The article builds on Jevons, Merton, Guattari and Braidotti, to examine how transversality maps unexpected consequences. Transversality is also a pragmatic method to render problems multi-dimensional: expressing active forces and capacities under the radar of established forms of articulation. Short summaries of articles by contributing authors complete this introduction. (shrink)