新兴生物增强技术的平等问题及法律治理研究

新兴生物增强技术通过低投入、高效益的方式显著提升个体能力,但其依赖支付能力的获取机制可能加剧社会不平等。学界提出的三种治理方案：“全有或全无的平等”存在价值失衡与可行性缺陷;“增强补贴”难以有效缩小群体差异;“补贴叠加禁止”补贴弱势与限制优势并举,但其依赖的运气平等主义隐含“向下拉平”的伦理风险。以关系平等主义为核心框架的治理思路,反对压迫性社会关系,聚焦能力差异是否引发政治支配与社会排斥。其治理路径要求国家应通过普惠性补贴等方式促进技术普及,同时监管通用能力差异的临界范围,避免其导致压迫性社会关系。

     

The Harshness Objection: Is Luck Egalitarianism Too Harsh on the Victims of Option Luck?

According to luck egalitarianism, inequalities are justified if and only if they arise from choices for which it is reasonable to hold agents responsible. This position has been criticised for its purported harshness in responding to the plight of individuals who, through their own choices, end up destitute. This paper aims to assess the Harshness Objection. I put forward a version of the objection that has been qualified to take into account some of the more subtle elements of the luck egalitarian approach. Revising the objection in this way suggests that the Harshness Objection has been overstated by its proponents: because luck egalitarians are sensitive to the influence of unequal brute luck on individuals’ choices, it is unlikely that there will be any real world cases in which the luck egalitarian would not have to provide at least partial compensation. However, the Harshness Objection still poses problems for the luck egalitarian. First, it is not clear that partial compensation will be sufficient to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Second, the Harshness Objection raises a theoretical problem in that a consistent luck egalitarian will have to regard it as unjust if any assistance is provided to the victim of pure option luck, even if such assistance could be provided at no cost. I consider three strategies the luck egalitarian could pursue to accommodate these concerns and conclude that none of these strategies can be maintained without either violating basic luck egalitarian principles or infringing upon individual liberty.

Games of luck and games of chance: the effect of luck- versus chance-orientation on gambling decisions

Chance and luck are conceived as two distinct causal agents that effect different results. The present study examined the proposition that persons who habitually attribute the outcome of random events to chance (chance-oriented persons) and those who prefer to attribute such outcomes to luck (luck-oriented persons) cope differently with decision making under uncertainty. Chance-oriented persons decide according to given or estimated odds that define the decision problem. Luck-oriented persons, on the other hand, rely on self-attributions of personal luck, and ignore the probabilities of decision outcomes. The hypothesized qualitative difference between the approaches of chance- and luck-oriented persons to decision making under uncertainty was supported substantially by the findings. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Pragmatic Case against Pragmatic Scientific Realism

Pragmatic Scientific Realism (PSR) urges us to take up the realist aim or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. While Newton-Smith thinks that pursuing what we know we cannot achieve is clearly irrational, Rescher disagrees and contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds—if in pursuing the unreachable goal one can get indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PSR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds—since there is a competing alternative to PSR, and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PSR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PSR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of science since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth.     

运气平等主义与吸烟者的健康责任

作为一种以责任为导向的分配正义理论,运气平等主义主张吸烟者应自行承担自愿选择吸烟而造成的医疗成本责任,否则会对其他人不公平。吸烟者健康责任论虽然在道德直觉上极具吸引力,但却面临实践上的困难。以前瞻性责任为依据的事前投保或征税方案,可能遭遇道德风险或不能精准锁定目标人群等问题。以追溯性责任为依据的“罚当其责”方案,可能面临认识论或医学伦理等问题。从次优角度来看,以激励和预防为主的前瞻性责任比以指责和惩罚为主的追溯性责任更能产生促进健康的效果。     

Common-Sense Virtue Ethics and Moral Luck

Moral luck poses a problem for out conception of responsibility because it highlights a tension between morality and lack of control. Michael Slote’s common-sense virtue ethics claims to avoid this problem. However there are a number of objections to this claim. Firstly, it is not clear that Slote fully appreciates the problem posed by moral luck. Secondly, Slote’s move from the moral to the ethical is problematic. Thirdly it is not clear why we should want to abandon judgements of moral blame in favour of judgements of ethical deplorability. Finally this paper defends an alternative solution to the problem of moral luck, which focuses on judgements of probability, but which has been rejected by Slote.     

A Wild West of the Mind

§258 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is often seen as the core of his private language argument. While its role is certainly overinflated and it is a mistake to think that there is anything that could be called the private language argument, §258 is an important part of the private language sections of the Philosophical Investigations. As with so much of Wittgenstein's work, there are widely diverse interpretations of why exactly the private diarist's attempted ostensive definition fails. I argue for a version of the no-stage-setting interpretation of the failure of private ostension. On this interpretation, the reason why the diarist cannot establish a meaning for ‘S’ is that she lacks the conceptual-linguistic stage-setting needed to disambiguate the concentration of her attention (the private analogue of an ostensive definition). Thus, the problem with any subsequent use of ‘S’ is not that there is no criterion of correctness for remembering the meaning of ‘S’ correctly, or for re-identifying S correctly in the future. Rather, it is because of the initial failure to define ‘S’ that there is nothing that could count as a criterion of correctness for the future use of ‘S’; there is nothing to remember or re-identify. My argument for the no-stage-setting interpretation consists in showing how well it fits into the rest of the Philosophical Investigations and in defending it against objections from Robert J. Fogelin, Anthony Kenny, and most recently John V. Canfield. Kenny's and Canfield's objections are found to suffer from problems regarding memory scepticism.     

KINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?

Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended.     

An institutional political economy view on Thomas Nagel's ‘minimum humanitarian morality’ in global justice

Thomas Nagel's conservative position of the political conception for world politics and his insightful ‘Minimum Humanitarian Morality’ (MHM) view on global justice are laudable. He admits that the path from anarchy to justice must go through injustice. But Nagel does not clearly identify the conditions under which we put up with global injustice. This paper reviews the conception of MHM through the lens of the institutional political economy. In my view, to recognize the degree of structural failure (weakness in governance) as well as the degree of transition failure (elite bargain or personalization of power being interlocked) in each state can give us a hint on how to conceptualize and apply Nagel's MHM. We also argue that the scope and degree of humanitarian aid may vary in accordance with the options to global justice open to each state.     

人类基因编辑技术对运气平等主义的挑战及应对

运气平等主义区分选择和运气,强调具体责任原则,认为个体选择导致的不利处境不应该得到社会补偿。人类基因编辑技术的高速发展使得自由主义优生得以可能,父母可以自主设计下一代的基因构成,并为此承担责任。然而,由于个体选择的是定义人类自然本性的生物素质,具体责任原则在人类基因编辑技术实践中引发新的挑战：打破分配正义预设;难以厘清责任归属;破坏责任承担自由意志;加剧社会不平等。为了使人类基因编辑技术更好地促进社会正义,需要重申平等对待原则,加强责任伦理,以及完善社会保障机制。