Rawls and Religious Community: Ethical Decision Making in the Public Square

While most people may initially agree that justice is fairness,as an evangelical Protestant I argue that, for many religiouscomprehensive doctrines, the Rawlsean model does not possessthe resources necessary to sustain tolerance in moral decisionmaking. The weakness of Rawls's model centers on the reasonablepriority of convictions that arise from private comprehensivedoctrines. To attain a free and pluralistic society, peopleneed resources sufficient to provide reasons to tolerate actionsthat are otherwise intolerable. In addition to arguing for thedeficiency of the Rawlsean political model, I sketch out a preliminarymodel of ambassadorship that offers religious communities, andin particular Protestant evangelicals, the necessary resourcesto engage the broader society tolerantly while maintaining theirreligious convictions. As a citizen of the church and a memberof another kingdom, Christians serve as ambassadors to thosewho are not of the heavenly kingdom. I take this model to bemore ambitious than that of a sojourner who lives in the landbut is isolated as much as possible from society, while moremodest than that of reconstructionists who seek to implementtheir own sacred law on all others.     

The Naked Goddess: Pornography and the Sacred

Abstract

In this article it is argued that contemporary forms of pornography represent an assault upon important sacred traditions which venerated female generative power and saw sexuality as a means of participating in the divine. The pornographic representations of the feminine in Western culture are part of systems of domination which not only support the abuse of women but also the colonization of peoples and the exploitation of nature. A celebration of the sexual cosmologies, which can still be found in cultural performances and ritual acts, is a means of countering this domination. So too is the process of speaking from the vulva; reclaiming the female genitals as a source of intelligent power that both manifest in and signify the creative forces that animate the universe.     

The Logic of the Ontological Square

The Ontological Square is a categorial scheme that combines two metaphysical distinctions: that between types (or universals) and tokens (or particulars) on the one hand, and that between characters (or features) and their substrates (or bearers) on the other hand. The resulting four-fold classification of things comprises particular substrates, called substances, universal substrates, called kinds, particular characters, called modes or moments, and universal characters, called attributes. Things are joined together in facts by primitive ontological ties or nexus. This article describes a logic that is meant to capture the basic intuitions behind the Ontological Square. Given a minimal correspondence between atomic logical form and ontological structure, the commitment to nexus as a distinct ontological category entails a rehabilitation of copulae as ties of predication. Thus, the Logic of the Ontological Square is a copula calculus rather than a predicate calculus; its soundness and completeness can be established with respect to a model akin to a so-called first-order semantics for standard second-order logic. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Mediated Exhibitionism: The Naked Body in Performance and Virtual Space

Mediated exhibitionism is the phenomenon of amateur performers exposing their nude bodies on the Internet, and includes the exchange of nude images by email, text message, webcam, electronic bulletin board, and other means of digital communication. Although mediated exhibitionism has its foundation in live performance and traditional media forms, its potential as a means for broadening the aesthetics of the body and offering a form of resistance to social control is magnified by the interactive quality of the Internet. Conversely, new aesthetic ideals have been established and resistance to social control has been challenged by the very technology which made resistance possible. A series of websites catering to mediated exhibitionism were investigated.     

Full‐Frontal Morality: The Naked Truth about Gender

This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex‐differentiated within a system of genital representation through gender presentation—a system that helps constitute the very boundaries between the public and private.     

The Right to be Publicly Naked: A Defence of Nudism

Res Publica - Many liberal democracies have legal restrictions on nudism. This article argues that when public nudity does not pose a health threat (which it seldom does), such restrictions are...     

The concept of psychological regression: metaphors, mapping, Queen Square, and Tavistock Square

The term "regression" refers to events in which an individual changes from his or her present level of maturity and regains mental and behavioral characteristics shown at an earlier point in development. This definition has remained constant for over a century, but the implications of the concept have changed systematically from a perspective in which regression was considered pathological, to a current view in which regression may be seen as a positive step in psychotherapy or as a part of normal development. The concept of regression, famously employed by Sigmund Freud and others in his circle, derived from ideas suggested by Herbert Spencer and by John Hughlings Jackson. By the 1940s and '50s, the regression concept was applied by Winnicott and others in treatment of disturbed children and in adult psychotherapy. In addition, behavioral regression came to be seen as a part of a normal developmental trajectory, with a focus on expectable variability. The present article examines historical changes in the regression concept in terms of mapping to biomedical or other metaphors, in terms of a movement from earlier nativism toward an increased environmentalism in psychology, and with respect to other historical factors such as wartime events. The role of dominant metaphors in shifting perspectives on regression is described.     

The Naked Spirit of Sport: A Framework for Revisiting the System of Bans and Justifications in the World Anti-Doping Code

As the World Anti-Doping Code is up for revision, the paper proposes a framework for reading the Code based on a relatively literal approach and an almost exclusive focus on the ‘spirit of sport’ as a key element of the Code. The author argues that this single element can contribute to revealing the underlying rationale of the Code, as it serves to justify bans of doping substances and methods, in some cases without recurring to evidence sustaining the claims made. For a substance/method to be banned, the Code requires that two out of three criteria be met: performance enhancement, health risk and the spirit of sport. The paper demonstrates how these provisions link to other parts of the Code, (under the rules of the Code 2009) in the absence of performance-enhancing properties combined with a health risk. The paper draws implications from these findings regarding terminological (im)precision, legal certainty/predictability, transparency/accountability, limits to arbitrary exercise of power and internal/external validity.     

Public Health Problems in the Medieval Statutes of Croatian Adriatic Coastal Towns: From Public Morality to Public Health

The article seeks out the regulations about public health in the oldest medieval statutes of fourteen cities of the eastern Croatian Adriatic coast, between the thirteenth and sixteenth century. The research revealed numerous examples of direct or indirect ways of protecting public health. Through the analyzed documents, a noteworthy relationship between public morality and public health can be noted. The described rules are important as a reflection of awareness about public health as a condition of survival and progress in the past. They witness a progressive transition from an original common law into a written law as well as the impact that religion had in influencing people’s general opinion and lifestyle in light of public health problems.     

博弈论视角下公立医院回归公益性改革研究

公立医院回归公益性改革正在进行,取得了一定成就,但群众“看病难、看病贵”现象仍未得到解决,医疗费用居高不下.以博弈论为视角,分析了政府、公立医院、居民三方之间的博弈关系,并从完善公立医院补偿机制、重视公立医院社会责任、增加居民博弈砝码等角度提出了完善公立医院回归公益性改革的路径选择.     

公立医院回归公益性的伦理探析

从制度及管理上的伦理缺陷分析了公立医院公益性淡化的原因.医疗产品和服务的特殊性、公立医院所承担的社会责任、对人的尊重、公平优先的原则为公立医院回归公益性提供了伦理依据.加大政府投入,加强行业监管,推进卫生系统的信息化,进行产权、财务制度、人事制度改革,完善基层合作是公立医院回归公益性的必要措施.     

公共管理机制中的私营方式

在西方开展公共管理与服务的市场化改革运动中 ,私营方式作为一种主要的机制得到推广 ,且收效良好。本文通过对西方实验的总结 ,试图对私营方式这一公共管理新机制作出规范 ,并结合我国政府管理改革的实际 ,探讨在我国政府管理中导入私营方式的前景。