The appeal to the christian tradition in the debate about embryonic stem cell research

This paper focuses on an argument that has been invoked in the stem cell debate: appeal to the Christian tradition. Bishop Richard Harries has put forward the claim that the Christian tradition offers precedent that would give ethical justification for experimenting on human embryos. In contrast, Pope John Paul II claimed that the tradition unwaveringly supported the protection of the human embryo from deliberate harm. In favour of Pope John Paul's reading of the Christian tradition is the fact that Christianity was notable from the outset for its wholehearted opposition to abortion. Bishop Harries can point to three elements in the tradition that seem to qualify the absolute prohibition on abortion: (1) variable penalties for abortion; (2) belief in delayed ensoulment; and (3) abortion to save the mother's life. Nevertheless, detailed consideration of the tradition shows that these apparent qualifications do not provide precedent for destructive experiments on human embryos.     

The vicissitudes of seeing: Iconoclasm and idolatry

Alain Besançon, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm. Trans. by Jane Marie Todd. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000, viii+423 pp., 32 b/w illustrations, $40.00 ISBN 0 226 04413 0.

Albert Boime, The Unveiling of the National Icons: A Plea for Patriotic Iconoclasm in a Nationalistic Era. Cambridge Studies in American Visual Culture. Cambridge, University of Cambridge Press, 1998, xvii+427 pp., 86 b/w illustrations, $69.50 ISBN 0 521 57067 0.

Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997, xiii+ 331 pp., 50 b/w illustrations, $55.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 691 02622 X, $19.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 691 00520 6.

Dario Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997, 416 pp., 151 b/w illustrations, $45.00 ISBN 0 300 07170 1.

Gerald R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, xvii+ 168 pp., $54.95 ISBN 0 521 65165 4.

Kenneth Mills, Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640–1750. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, xiii+337 pp., 9 b/w illustrations, $69.50 ISBN 0 691 02979 2.     

From glamour-oriented idolatry to achievement-oriented idolatry: A framing experiment among adolescents in Hong Kong and Shenzhen

The present study examined the framing effect of two modes of idolatry among a sample of 1095 secondary school students in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Two experimental conditions were set up: in the glamour frame condition, subjects were exposed to frames that enhanced perfection and mystification of idols' personal or ideological characteristics; in the achievement frame condition, subjects were exposed to frames that enhanced emulation and identification of idols' pro-social behaviours or desirable dispositional traits. The experiment selected a prominent pop music and movie star well known in Chinese societies, Andy Lau, as the target idol. Subjects showed a consistently and significantly greater desire to glorify, idealize, identify with, emulate, and attach to Andy Lau in the achievement frame condition than in the glamour frame condition. The finding suggests that an achievement frame can heighten young people's adoration of an idol by emphasizing the idol's achievement processes. This suggestion is favourable to the possibility of transforming an idol into a role model for young people to learn to pursue career success.     

宋以前孝道是否有“教团”崇拜

所谓“孝道”,是晋以来人们因共同尊崇孝或许逊而凝聚成的一个宗教性群体,以推崇孝行为主要特征,乃“净明忠孝道”之前身。学术界关于净明忠孝道形成时间的看法颇有分歧,如日本学者秋月观认为应在元代刘玉教团出现时,而中国大陆学者则多主张应为南宋何真公教团出现时;但无论如何,大家对南宋以后有崇拜许逊之“教团”存在,却有着一致的认识。那么,南宋以前是否有崇拜许逊之“教团”存在呢?笔者所说的“教团”,实指具有宗教性质的团体。在这种团体中,人们不仅追求共同的信仰、崇拜共同的神灵,而且拥有共同的行为规范和活动场所,甚至还造作用以…     

The ethics of human stem cell research

The medical and clinical promise of stem cell research is widely heralded, but moral judgments about it collide. This article takes general stock of such judgments and offers one specific resolution. It canvasses a spectrum of value judgments on sources, complicity, adult stem cells, and public and private contexts. It then examines how debates about abortion and stem cell research converge and diverge. Finally, it proposes to extend the principle of "nothing is lost" to current debates. This extension links historical discussions of the ethics of direct killing with unprecedented possibilities that in vitro fertilization procedures yield. A definite normative region to inhabit is located, within a larger range of rival value judgments. The creation of embryos for research purposes only should be resisted, yet research on "excess' embryos is permissible by virtue of an appeal to the "nothing is lost" principle.     

The Lashley-Hull debate revisited

N. Weidman (1994) claimed that "Karl Lashley and Clark Hull had a long and unresolved controversy about the structure and function of the brain, its relationship to the mind, and the use of machine metaphors to explain intelligence" (p. 162). The record contained in published articles and unpublished correspondence indicates otherwise. The clash was explicitly about continuity versus noncontinuity in discrimination learning, stimulus generalization, and the development of quantitative and mathematical psychological theory and its relation to neurophysiological data. Weidman also contended that the subtext of the debate was whether heredity or environment was more important in determining intelligence and behavior. This is doubtful. It is more probable that the debate stemmed from Lashley's career-long opposition to connectionism.     

The role of philosophy in the contemporary abortion debate.

Inspired by Patrick Lee's "A Christian Philosopher's View of Recent Directions in the Abortion Debate," this essay raises the question of how effective philosophical arguments can be in determining the moral status of legalized abortion. On one hand, Christian philosophers have been successful in explaining both the humanity and the personhood of the unborn child, as well as exposing the incoherence of those who would deny the unborn child's humanity or personhood. Nevertheless, in order to confront the pro-abortion position in its most radical form, a much more complex philosophical argument must be given. Following thinkers such as Alasdaire MacIntyre, Christian philosophers must articulate and promote a philosophical position according to which morality is conceived in richer terms than the mere respecting of individual rights. The social dimension of human nature must be rediscovered in order that the happiness and welfare of others becomes a desirable goal in and of itself. According to a morality where individual rights is the bottom line (for example, that of Judith Jarvis Thompson), women very well may have the right to "extricate" themselves from their pregnancy even when doing so will result in the death of their child. What must be explained, therefore, is the more profound insight that social morality is equally concerned with obligations to others, including those who are most helpless and unable to speak for themselves.