元伦理学视角下good的意义及其汉译研究

作为价值词,good的用法灵活多样,语义复杂多变,是典型的一词多义。它既有道德用法也有非道德用法,既有描述性意义也有评价性意义,这些用法和意义既有区别又有联系。很多情况下,并不能简单地把good理解为"好",而要根据其出现的上下文进行正确理解,灵活处理,选择恰当的汉译。     

公民的两种身份及其道德要求

“公民道德”意义上的公民具有两种身份,一是法律身份,一是社会身份。不同的身份决定了对个体不同的道德要求。一般来说,这两种身份统一于一个具有完全责任能力的个体之中,不同的身份只能出现在不同的场合或者承载不同的社会关系,场合不同、社会关系不同,对他的道德要求就不一样,二者不能混淆,即身份是不能僭越也不能放弃。但是,两种身份的道德要求在底线上是一致,这就是说,两种身份的责任和道德要求在特定的场合和社会关系之中可以融通。     

科学与宗教是两个不重叠的权威领域吗?——《科学与宗教:它们可以调和吗?》评述(五)

在关于科学与道德问题上,有两种对立的观点:一种是认为科学覆盖了经验世界的自然知识领域,而宗教则覆盖道德和价值领域,两者是互不重叠的权威领域。然而"冲突论者"的态度则认为这种中立态度并不现实,"鱼和熊掌不可兼得"。还有一种分析性态度,认为科学与宗教只在形而上学的问题上冲突,而在道德伦理问题上并不冲突。本篇将评述《科学与宗教:它们可以调和吗?》"科学与道德:两个不重叠权威领域"部分的三篇文章,引述与评论这些观点。     

论道德二难选择

道德二难选择是道德选择的特殊方式,是指人们处于两种冲突的利益关系之中必须做出行为决断的选择。在社会这个大系统中,各种利益的冲突往往不是那么直接,矛盾冲突关系常常呈现出立体的形式,一种宏观的     

马基雅维里的virtù概念辨析

马基雅维里的virtù概念隐含了不同价值体系之间的矛盾,即古罗马意义上的德性和基督教德性的冲突、能力优异和道德完善的冲突。而virtù本身的多义性容易掩盖这两种矛盾。通过剖析这一概念可以发现,马基雅维里要挑战的不仅仅是基督教道德,而且还有古罗马哲学中的某些道德主张。他的政治道德思想的新异之处,不仅表现在揭示因多元谱系而产生的道德内部的裂变和分歧,更重要的是,他要重新评价道德在政治中的地位与作用。     

论道德妥协

妥协是冲突双方A和B通过相互自愿让步以解决冲突而达成的一致,当涉及不同的道德价值和原则时,妥协成为道德妥协。道德冲突是道德妥协的必要条件。道德妥协的可欲性与道德冲突的解决和完整性密切相关。其中,完整性成为道德妥协的限度。要达成一种保护完整性的道德妥协,冲突双方要对道德冲突本身有所了解,并将他们所有的道德价值和原则都考虑进来。     

现代性道德冲突与社会规制

道德冲突是人类社会生活中客观存在的一类特殊道德现象,是当前社会各界共同关切的道德焦点问题,是平稳实现社会全面转型亟需化解的社会风险。人类永远不能完全消除"原生型道德冲突",但可以减少或避免一些"衍生型道德冲突"。原生型道德冲突、主体型道德冲突和社会环境型道德冲突有不同的引发诱因;在社会利益关系多样、价值相对主义和虚无主义弥散的当代社会,道德冲突虽不可避免,但社会管理、法律与道德的共同规制与互济,能够缓解道德冲突的尖锐性或遏制衍生型道德冲突的泛滥。     

真实的道德冲突对个体道德成长的意义

个体的道德成长是在不断解决道德冲突的过程中逐步实现的。个体道德成长应该面向真实,接触真实,向真实发问,而并不仅仅是通过虚拟情景下简单的道德选择模拟实现。真实的道德冲突及其选择对个体道德成长的意义,集中表现在主体在道德选择的过程中和道德实践的基础上,主体的道德认识、道德情感、道德意志、道德信念都得到了具体实在的检验和升华,实现了道德选择和道德行为的统一。在真实的道德情境中恰当的设置道德冲突,才能真正促进个体道德的成长。     

现象学伦理学的基本问题

严格意义上的"现象学的伦理学"是一种反思—描述的伦理学。胡塞尔、哈特曼、耿宁的案例为我们提供了现象学伦理学的三种可能性,它们的共同特点都是在现象学反思中进行的对道德意识的有意无意的本质直观。这样一种现象学的伦理学与其说是一种价值伦理学,不如说是一种道德心理学或道德意识现象学。现象学的反思—描述伦理学与近代以来的规范伦理学的区别,非常类似于数学—逻辑学中的直觉主义与形式主义的差异。与后面两种数学理论一样,前面两种伦理学说也不能被理解为是非此即彼、相互排斥的。只是对它们之间的奠基关系的不同理解,会导向在伦理学思考中的两种不同立场:反思—描述伦理学的和规范伦理学的。这两种伦理学需要彼此互补才能最终构成完整的人类道德系统。     

军人德性冲突及选择原则

军人德性冲突特指军人两种或多种美德之间的冲突，它是军人道德生活中无法回避的难题。走出军人德性冲突的困境必须遵循三条原则：职业价值优先、全面打赢高于一切和集体高于个人，这三者共成一个有机整体共同发挥作用。     

Response trajectories reveal conflict phase in image–word mismatch

In the present study, response trajectories were used in a picture–word conflict task to determine the timing of intermediate processing stages that are relatively inaccessible to response time measures. A marker was placed above or below the word ABOVE or BELOW so that its location was congruent or in conflict with the word's meaning. To report either word location(above or below the marker) or word meaning, participants moved a mouse upward toward the appropriate top left or right answer corner on the display screen.Their response trajectories showed a number of distinctive features: First, at about 200 ms after stimulus onset(the "decision moment"), the trajectory abruptly began to arc toward the appropriate answer corner; second,when the word's meaning and position were in conflict,the trajectory showed an interruption that continued until the conflict was resolved. By varying the SOA of the word and marker onsets, we found that the word meaning and word position became available at approximately 325 ms and 251 ms, respectively, after their onsets, and that the delay to resolve conflicts was about 138 ms. The timing of these response trajectory events was more stable than any extracted from the final response times, demonstrating the power of response trajectories to reveal processing stages that are only poorly resolved, if at all, by response time measures [added].     

时序知觉中词义和位置的stroop效应

本文目的在于探讨时序知觉中是否存在词义与位置Stroop效应。通过时序知觉判断任务,使用中文汉字“先-后”刺激材料,让被试做出时序判断。对反应时的结果显示空间方位、词义位置的匹配关系和时间间隔均存在主效应,空间方位和词义位置匹配关系、空间方位和时间间隔、词义位置匹配关系和时间间隔均存在交互作用。上述结果提示人脑在时序知觉判断过程中存在词义和位置的Stroop效应,该效应可能与时序知觉加工机制有关。     

A defense of the common morality

Phenomena of moral conflict and disagreement have led writers in ethics to two antithetical conclusions: Either valid moral distinctions hold universally or they hold relative to a particular and contingent moral framework, and so cannot be applied with universal validly. Responding to three articles in this issue of the Journal that criticize his previously published views on the common morality, the author maintains that one can consistently deny universality to some justified moral norms and claim universality for others. Universality is located on the common morality and nonuniversality in other parts of the moral life, called "particular moralities." The existence of universal moral standards is defended in terms of: (1) a theory of the objectives of morality, (2) an account of the norms that achieve those objectives, and (3) an account of normative justification (both pragmatic and coherentist).     

Expressivism, Logic, Consistency, and Moral Dilemmas

On an expressivist view, ethical claims are understood as expressions of our attitudes, desires, and feelings. A famous puzzle for this view concerns the use of logic in ethical reasoning, and two standard treatments try to solve the puzzle by explaining logical inconsistency in terms of conflicting attitudes. I argue, however, that this general strategy fails: because we can reason effectively even in the presence of conflicting moral attitudes – in cases of moral dilemmas – avoiding these conflicts cannot be a ground for correct moral reasoning. The result is a dilemma for expressivists: if they take all kinds of attitudes to be under consideration, then conflict cannot play the required role, since attitudes can fail to be compatible in cases of moral conflict. If they restrict attention to ‘all-in attitudes’ or to intentions or plans, then there is an important notion of obligation, used in standard arguments – one for which conflicts are allowed – that they fail to capture. I explain why expressivists should be especially tolerant of conflicting attitudes, and I conclude that they should pursue a different strategy for grounding logical normativity.

The many faces of autonomy

What does autonomy mean from a moral point of view? Throughout Western history, autonomy has had no less than four different meanings. The first is political: the capacity of old cities and modern states to give themselves their own laws. The second is metaphysical, and was introduced by Kant in the second half of the 18th century. In this meaning, autonomy is understood as an intrinsic characteristic of all rational beings. Opposed to this is the legal meaning, in which actions are called autonomous when performed with due information and competency and without coercion. This last meaning, the most frequently used in bioethics, is primarily legal instead of moral. Is there a proper moral meaning of the word autonomy? If so, this would be a fourth meaning. Acts can only be called moral when they are postconventional (using the terminology coined by Lawrence Kohlberg), inner-directed (as expressed by David Riesman), and responsible (according to Hannah Arendt). Such acts are autonomous in this new, fourth, and to my mind, the only one proper, moral meaning. The goal of ethics cannot be other than forming human beings capable of making autonomous and responsible decisions, and doing so because they think this is their duty and not because of any other nonmoral motivation, like comfort, convenience, or satisfaction. The goal of ethics is to promote postconventional and mature human beings. This was what Socrates tried to do with the young people of Athens. And it is also the objective of every course of ethics and of any process of training.     

Context change and the role of meaning in word recognition

Two experiments were conducted in which the central variable was the addition of verbal context on the test which was not present during study. Neither study showed context to be a relevant variable. Because verbal context effects (when they do occur) are presumed to result from a change of meaning, the broader role of word meaning in recognition was examined. Studies in which homographs were used to produce a change in meaning were reviewed with the conclusion that when appropriate controls are used the effects are too small to support meaning as a major factor underlying recognition. An experiment using homographs verified the general conclusion from previous studies. A review of studies was then undertaken to determine the influence of synonym distractors on recognition scores. If word meaning is critical in word recognition, the use of synonyms of study words as new words on the recognition test should produce large decrements. The evidence available did not support this expectation, and an experiment using both within-subject and between-subject comparisons showed at best only small effects. The general conclusion was that theories of recognition in which word meaning plays a dominant role cannot be supported. It is likely that word meaning is encoded during study of lists of words but is infrequently used in making recognition decisions.     

New data analysis of the stroop matching task calls for a reevaluation of theory

In Stroop matching tasks, participants indicate whether the color of an object matches the meaning of a color word printed in color. Previously in this journal, Luo (1999) concluded that interference between two incongruent representations of the same attribute (ink color) occurs prior to the response stage. However, this conclusion was based on questionable data analysis. We suggest analyzing the data by separating "same" and "different" responses and then analyzing three congruency conditions within the "different" responses: (a) congruence between word color and word meaning, (b) congruence between word color and object color, and (c) incongruence between word color, word meaning, and object color. In an experiment similar to Luo's, such an analysis revealed that responding was slowest in the first condition. This pattern of results does not fit with previous conclusions regarding this task, but rather indicates that task conflict and response competition contribute to interference. This analysis has implications for matching tasks other than the Stroop matching task.     

Aggression: myth or model?

ABSTRACT The word, aggression, refers in general usage to unjustified attack, and any serious writer who uses it extensively in some figurative or newly-coined technical sense should leave his meaning in no doubt. Unfortunately some ethological writers fail to do this and deceive themselves into the bargain.
They somewhat naively claim to find aggression built into the fundamental nature of animals, a kind of instinct which cannot be resisted, indeed which must figure in their social cohesion. If the word really retains the moral connotation which I have indicated, then much animal biology is vitiated. Not only are animals misjudged, but, since conclusions are then applied to our human selves, we too are misjudged and recommended to adopt false moral principles.
It is possible that ensuing armchair pseudo-cures may be responsible for a real increase in human violence.     

Differential cerebral involvement in the cognitive functioning of bilinguals

The cognitive processing strategies of two groups of French-English bilinguals were studied by means of an auditory Stroop test designed to evaluate cerebral hemispheric involvement. An “early bilingual” group were bilingual before the age of 5, and a “late bilingual” group were bilingual after the age of 10. Stimuli were words uttered in pitches that were related to word meanings either congruently (as in the word “high” uttered in a high pitch) or incongruently (the word “haute” uttered in a low pitch). In one condition, subjects were to differentiate low from high pitches, disregarding meaning, while in a second condition, they were to disregard pitch and respond to word meanings. Measures of field independence were also taken. Results of data analyses suggest that male early bilinguals—the most field independent subgroup—process meaning efficiently in both cerebral hemispheres, but process pitch better in the right hemisphere. However, male late bilinguals and female bilinguals, both early and late, process meaning more rapidly in the right cerebral hemisphere and pitch equally rapidly in both hemispheres. The findings are interpreted as reflecting hemisphere-based strategy and sex differences in information-processing by the two bilingual groups.     

Moral conflict and the logic of rights

The paper proposes a revised logic of rights in order to accommodate moral conflict. There are often said to be two rival philosophical accounts of rights with respect to moral conflict. Specificationists about rights insist that rights cannot conflict, since they reflect overall deontic conclusions. Generalists instead argue that rights reflect pro tanto constraints on behaviour. After offering an overview of the debate between generalists and specificationists with respect to rights, I outline the challenge of developing a logic of rights-reasoning that is compatible with generalism. I then proceed to offer a new logical framework, which utilizes a simple non-monotonic logic of practical reasoning. Both generalist and specificationist interpretations of the logic are explored. The revised logic shows that traditional characterizations of the debate between specificationists and generalists obscure other relevant philosophical positions.