Confucian Ethics: Altruistic? Egoistic? Both? Neither?

Is Confucian ethics primarily egoistic or altruistic? There is textual support for both answers. For the former, for example, Confucius claims that one learns for the sake of oneself; for the latter, we can find Confucius saying that one ought to not impose upon others as one would not like to be imposed upon. This essay aims to explain in what sense Confucian ethics is egoistic (the highest goal one aims to reach is to become a virtuous person oneself) and in what sense it is altruistic (a virtuous person is necessarily concerned with the well-being, both external and internal, of others). The conclusion to be drawn, however, is not that Confucian ethics is both egoistic and altruistic, but that it is neither, since the Confucian ideal of a virtuous person is to be in one body with others so that there are really no others (since all others become part of myself), and since there are no others, there is no self either.     

Mechanisms for the Relationship between Traditional Masculine Ideologies and Rape Myth Acceptance Among College Men

We explored mechanisms for the relationship between traditional masculine ideologies and rape myth acceptance. We hypothesized that locus of control would serve as a mediator for victim precipitation rape myths, and negative attitudes toward women would serve as a mediator for victim masochism and victim fabrication rape myths. Using a sample of 100 male college students, the results indicated that negative attitudes toward women mediated the relationship between traditional masculine ideologies and all 3 types of rape myths, but locus of control did not serve as a mediator for any. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Expectations and prescriptions for responding to peer aggression: The adolescent offenders' perspective

The purpose of the current research was to investigate adolescent offenders' perspectives about responses to interpersonal aggressive encounters. Specifically, participants' perspectives were assessed regarding the role of a bystander when either a friend or an acquaintance of the bystander was the victim of an aggressive act. Two aggressive acts were presented. First, the bystander witnessed an acquaintance stealing from the victim. Second, the bystander witnessed an acquaintance hitting the victim. Participants were asked to indicate (a) if the bystander would do anything (bystander expected behavior), (b) what the bystander would do (expected behavioral action), (c) if the action would be the right thing to do (evaluation of bystander expected behavioral action), and (d) what the bystander should do in response to the violation (prescribed bystander behavioral action). Results indicate that the adolescent offenders' perspectives varied as a function of offender status, type of aggressive act, as well as relationship of the victim to the bystander. Aggr. Behav. 23:149–160, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Taking human life

Alan Donagan's position regarding the morality of taking innocent human life, that it is impermissible regardless of the wishes of the victim, is criticized by Brock who argues for a rights-based alternative. His argument appeals to the nature of persons' actual interest in life and gives them an additional element of control which they lack if a nonwaivable moral duty not to kill prevails. The author rejects Donagan's view that stopping a life-sustaining treatment, even when a competent patient has consented, is morally wrong and that there is no moral difference between killing and allowing to die. A rights-based position permits stopping treatment of incompetent patients based on what the patient would have wanted or what is in his or her best interest, and allows the withholding of treatment from a terminally ill person, with the patient's consent and for a benevolent motive, to be evaluated as morally different from killing that patient.     

Dishonesty in the Name of Equity

ABSTRACT— Under what conditions do people act dishonestly to help or hurt others? We addressed this question by examining the influence of a previously overlooked factor—the beneficiary or victim of dishonest acts. In two experiments, we randomly paired participants and manipulated their wealth levels through an initial lottery. We then observed how inequity between partners influenced the likelihood of one dishonestly helping or hurting the other, while varying the financial incentives for dishonest behavior. The results show that financial self-interest cannot fully explain people's tendency to dishonestly help or hurt others. Rather, such dishonesty is influenced by emotional reactions to wealth-based inequity, even when the dishonesty bears a personal financial cost. Envy evoked by negative inequity led to hurting behavior, whereas guilt induced by positive inequity motivated helping behavior. Finally, inequity between the partner and third parties triggered dishonest helping through empathy with the partner.     

当局者迷,旁观者清?自我-他人决策的理性差异及其机制

生活充满抉择,由于知识经验的局限,人们常需寻求他人建议,抑或直接请他人代己决策.诸多研究探讨了自我决策、向他人建议,以及代他人决策之间的差异.探究这种差异的动因之一在于考察何种条件下的决策更优或更“理性”.以往研究表明,自我决策或他人决策(向他人建议或代他人决策)均有可能更易违背理性决策原则,隐含着他人决策优于自我决策的“当局者迷,旁观者清”这一传统智慧有一定的边界条件.研究者一般从认知(建构水平理论)、情绪(类型和卷入度),以及动机(调节聚焦理论)三种视角对自我-他人决策差异进行解释.本文作者提出基于理由的决策(reason-based account)假设来解释自我-他人决策在理性程度上的差异.未来研究可从决策过程及脑机制上深入考察自我-他人决策差异及其机制.     

Psychic trauma and masochism

Three analyses are presented in which acute trauma (overwhelming internal or external stimulation so great as to preclude the patient's utilizing his usual defenses adequately) in childhood contributed to the development of masochism. The patients later attempted mastery through repetition, reversal, and erotization , and employed regression as a defense against feared oedipal wishes.     

Privacy as a value and as a right

Conclusions Knowledge of others, then, has value; so does immunity from being known. The ability to extend one's knowledge has value; so does the ability to limit other's knowledge of oneself. I have claimed that no interest can count as a right unless it clearly outweighs opposing interests whose presence is logically entailed. I see no way to establish that my interest in not being known, simply as such, outweighs your desire to know about me. I acknowledge the intuitive attractiveness of such a position; but my earlier discussion concluded that the value of privacy is ease, and the value of knowledge is understanding - and it's not obvious that either outweighs the other. Nor is it obvious that the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to limit what others know is more significant than the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to extend one's knowledge. I believe the intuitive attractiveness of the belief that privacy values outweigh knowledge values lies in the entirely correct belief that a society without any privacy would be unpleasant. But a society without mutual knowledge would be impossible.I conclude therefore that there is no right to privacy nor to control over it. Nevertheless, each of these things is a good, and a good made possible (given the presence of other people) by social structures. A desirable society will provide both privacy and control over privacy to some extent. Nothing in my analysis helps determine what the proper extent is, nor what areas of life particularly deserve protection. Those who would argue that privacy and control over it are entailed by respect for persons should, I think, choose instead some particular areas central to being a person, to counting as a person, and then show how one is less likely to exercise one's capacities there fully without privacy or without control over it. Although Gerstein's attempt fails because he inaccurately defines intimacy as a kind of absorption and incorrectly opposes absorption with publicity, I think it is the kind of attempt which must be made. Furthermore, he has probably chosen the right area of life - if anything has a special claim to privacy it is probably the union between people who care for one another. The value of being together alone may be more significant than the value of being alone, if only because words and actions are public while thoughts are not. But I will not try to develop that argument here.In any case both privacy and control over it are social goods; on egalitarian grounds they should, ceteris paribus, be equally available to everyone. This helps explain the dehumanizing effect of institutions which provide no privacy at all- prisons and some mental institutions. It is not so much that the inmates are totally known; it is rather that those who know them are not so fully known by them; further, that the staff has a great deal of control over what they disclose of themselves, and the inmates very little. The asymmetry of knowledge in those institutions is one aspect of the asymmetry of power; the completely powerless are likely to feel dehumanized.My analysis also helps account for the wrongness of covert observation. It is not simply that the observer violates the wishes of the observed, for the question is whose wishes trump. The observer is violating the justified expectations of the observed: expectations supported by weighty social conventions. These have more moral weight than simple desires do. The peeping torn is violating a convention which structures the distribution of knowledge, a convention from which he benefits. Without it his own activities might well be impossible. He might be more easily caught; or his victim, less trusting, might choose houses without windows. More deeply, the thrill of what he is doing depends on the existence of the convention. Even morally permissible excitement - the suggestiveness of some clothing- would disappear without conventions about nudity. Presumably, too, there are elements of his own personal life for which he values his privacy. He is on grounds of justice obligated to observe the rule which makes his benefits possible.(Some claims to privacy result from personal predilections, rather than from convention. Parent describes a person who is extremely sensitive about being short, for instance, and does not want his exact height to be common knowledge. The grounds for these claims are obviously different from those I've been discussing. The grounds are the moral obligation not to cause needless pain, or, if the information was given in confidence, to keep one's promises.)Although there is no right to privacy or to control over it as such, there is a right to equality of consideration and to a just distribution of benefits and burdens. To put it another way: there is no natural human right to privacy or to control over it; but a good society will provide some of each, and justice requires that the rules of a good society be observed.

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Kant's Ethics and Duties to Oneself

Abstract: This paper investigates the nature and foundation of duties to oneself in Kant's moral theory. Duties to oneself embody the requirement of the formula of humanity that agents respect rational nature in them-selves as well as in others. So understood, duties to oneself are not subject to the sorts of conceptual objections often raised against duties to oneself; nor do these duties support objections that Kant's moral theory is overly demanding or produces agents who are preoccupied with their own virtue. Duties to oneself emerge as an essential and compelling part of Kant's moral theory.     

复杂情境下不同角度及思维方式的决策表现差异:决策视角-心理距离的作用

本研究运用2个行为实验探讨了复杂情境下自我决策、为他人决策和预期他人决策在无意识思维方式和有意识思维方式下的决策表现差异。实验1发现复杂情境中无意识思维方式下,自我决策和为他人决策的决策表现显著优于预期他人决策,自我决策和为他人决策表现没有显著差异。实验2发现复杂情境中有意识思维时,在陌生人条件下,为他人决策表现分数显著高于自我决策与预期他人决策,自我决策和预期他人决策表现无显著差异;在朋友条件下,为他人决策和预期他人决策的决策表现显著优于自我决策,为他人决策和预期他人决策表现无显著差异。研究结果支持了本文提出的决策视角-心理距离作用假设(the Perspective-Distance Effect Hypothesis,PDEH)。     

Can empathic concern be generalized from one person to others? Another positive side of the ‘one‐among‐others’ effect

Previous research on the one‐among‐others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented among other individuals in need enhances: (1) awareness of these others and (2) the willingness to help them individually. In this work, we test that these outcomes are linked by an additional process: the generalization of empathic concern felt for the victim towards the others in need. Study 1 revealed that inducing empathic concern for a victim presented as one‐among‐others led to see the others as separate and different individuals, not as a unitary group. Study 2 showed that the one‐among‐others presentation (vs. only‐one‐victim) increased empathic concern towards those presented along with the main victim. Study 3 showed that the one‐among‐others presentation (vs. a single‐victim or a statistical presentation) increased the empathic concern felt for other individuals in need. Therefore, the one‐among‐others presentation does not weaken empathic concern but, instead, it leads to its generalization from one to others.     

A Moorean paradox of desire

A prevalent assumption among philosophers who believe that people can intentionally deceive themselves (intentionalists) is that they accomplish this by controlling what evidence they attend to. This article is concerned primarily with the evaluation of this claim, which we may call ‘attentionalism’. According to attentionalism, when one justifiably believes/suspects that not-p but wishes to make oneself believe that p, one may do this by shifting attention away from the considerations supportive of the belief that not-p and onto considerations supportive of the belief that p. The details of this theory are elaborated, its theoretical importance is pointed out, and it is argued that the strategy is supposed to work by leading to the repression of one's knowledge of the unwelcome considerations. However, I then show that the assumption that this is possible is opposed by the balance of a relevant body of empirical research, namely, the thought-suppression literature, and so intentionalism about self-deception cannot find vindication in the attentional theory.     

Consent Under Pressure: The Puzzle of Third Party Coercion

Coercion by the recipient of consent renders that consent invalid. But what about when the coercive force comes from a third party, not from the person to whom consent would be proffered? In this paper I analyze how threats from a third party affect consent. I argue that, as with other cases of coercion, we should distinguish threats that render consent invalid from threats whose force is too weak to invalidate consent and threats that are legitimate. Illegitimate controlling third party threats render consent invalid just as they do in two party cases. However, knowing that the consent is invalid is not sufficient to tell the recipient of consent what she may or should do. I argue that when presented with a token of consent from someone whom she thinks is experiencing an illegitimate controlling threat, the recipient may act on that token if and only if doing so represents a reasonable joint decision for her and the victim of coercion. The appropriate action for someone faced with third party coercion therefore depends on the other options open to her and those open to the victim of coercion.     

Scenes of shame,social roles,and the play with masks

This article explores various scenes of shame, raising the questions of what shame discloses about the self and how this self-disclosure takes place. Thereby, the common idea that shame discloses the self’s debasement will be challenged. The dramatic dialectics of showing and hiding display a much more ambiguous, dynamic self-image as result of an interactive evaluation of oneself by oneself and others. Seeing oneself seen contributes to the sense of who one becomes. From being absorbed in what one does, one might suddenly become self-aware, shift viewpoints and feel pressed to put on masks. In putting on a mask, one relates to oneself in distancing oneself from oneself. In being at once a moral agent and a performing actor with an audience and norms in mind, one embodies and transcends the social roles one takes. In addition to the feeling of shame, in which the self finds itself passively reflected, the self’s active reflections on its shame are to be taken into account. As examples from Milan Kundera, Shakespeare’s King Lear, a line from Kingsley Amis, a speech by Vaclav Havel and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments indicate, self-(re)presentation in the public and the private sphere is a complex hermeneutical process with surprising twists.     

Sadomasochism, sexual excitement, and perversion

Sadomasochism, an ingredient of infantile sexuality, is an essential part of normal sexual functioning and love relations, and of the very nature of sexual excitement. Sadomasochistic elements are also present in all sexual perversions. Sadomasochism starts out as the potential for erotic masochism in both sexes, and represents a very early capacity to link aggression with the libidinal elements of sexual excitement. Sexual excitement may be considered a basic affect that overcomes primitive splitting of love and hatred. Erotic desire is a more mature form of sexual excitement. Psychoanalytic exploration makes it possible to uncover the unconscious components of sexual excitement: wishes for symbiotic fusion and for aggressive penetration and intermingling; bisexual identifications; the desire to transgress oedipal prohibitions and the secretiveness of the primal scene, and to violate the boundaries of a teasing and withholding object. The relation between these wishes and the development of erotic idealization processes in both sexes is explored in the context of a critical review of the pertinent psychoanalytic literature.     

Moral masochism

The author questions the existence of unconscious guild and unconscious need for punishment. His thesis is that the self-destructive acts and sufferings of the moral masochist are not caused by an unconscious need for punishment, but rather by a flight from severe castration anxiety into masochistic acts. The analysis of the latent castration anxiety leads to the maturation of the superego. Clinical material from one case is used to support this thesis. Further material from the same case shows how the moral masochism of adolescence and adulthood grew out of the feminine masochism of latency. In addition, the author discusses another case of moral masochism which reviews the intricate relationship between psychic health and moral codes. The importance of the cultural atmosphere is emphasized, particularly what the moral masochist extracts from it.     

The Experience of Sexual Harassment Among Grade-School Students: Early Socialization of Female Subordination?

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school children's interpretation of sexual harassment incidents and the relationship of those interpretations to self-esteem and body esteem. Eleven scenarios were read to 73 third- to fifth-grade children. Eight scenarios exemplified peer harassment. The children were asked how they thought the victim felt, what the victim should do, why the perpetrator did this, and whether something similar had ever happened to them. They also completed gender role, self-esteem, and body esteem scales. Results indicated that the majority of the children had experienced peer harassment and that the boys and girls had experienced about equal amounts. However, total harassment was negatively related to self-esteem in girls, but not boys. Furthermore, the children's interpretations of the scenarios as well as the relationship of these interpretations to body and self-esteem indicated that the meaning of sexual harassment was different for the boys and girls. Girls were more likely to think the victim would be frightened and boys more likely to think that the victim would be flattered by the attention. Girls who reported that the victim would be frightened or that they did not know how the victim would react reported lower body esteem. These data are interpreted within the framework of sexual terrorism and sexual objectification theories. These data also underscore the need for additional research in sexual harassment among young children.     

The Cognitive Interview and Lie Detection: a New Magnifying Glass for Sherlock Holmes?

The observation of serious deficiencies in the traditional police interview led Geiselman and colleagues to develop an alternative method of questioning. This method is known as the cognitive interview. The CI starts from the premise that the witness, victim or suspect wishes to cooperate. But, what happens if this is not the case? More seriously, what happens if he/she lies? The main aim of this study is to examine the differences between true and false statements, as a function of the interview technique employed (CI/STI). Participants were 73 students of the University of La Laguna. A 2×2 factorial design with the following variables was used: type of interview [traditional interview used in Spain by the Police (STI) and cognitive (CI)] and type of statement (true and false). The hypothesis was that the true and false accounts of witnesses would be qualitatively and quantitatively different independent of the type of interview used (STI/CI). Results confirmed the hypothesis. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-relevance enhances susceptibility to false memory

Eyewitness testimony serves as important evidence in the legal system. Eyewitnesses of a crime can be either the victims themselves—for whom the experience is highly self-referential—or can be bystanders who witness and thus encode the crime in relation to others. There is a gap in past research investigating whether processing information in relation to oneself versus others would later impact people's suggestibility to misleading information. In two experiments (Ns = 68 and 122) with Dutch and Chinese samples, we assessed whether self-reference of a crime event (i.e., victim vs. bystander) affected their susceptibility to false memory creation. Using a misinformation procedure, we photoshopped half of the participants' photographs into a crime slideshow so that they saw themselves as victims of a nonviolent crime, while others watched the slideshow as mock bystander witnesses. In both experiments, participants displayed a self-enhanced suggestibility effect: Participants who viewed themselves as victims created more false memories after receiving misinformation than those who witnessed the same crime as bystanders. These findings suggest that self-reference might constitute a hitherto new risk factor in the formation of false memories when evaluating eyewitness memory reports.     

Religion and the theory of masochism

The various aspects of masochistic personality structures provide a useful model for examining familiar elements of ordinary religious life. Overall theories of masochism can be divided into six general categories which trace masochism to 1) a distortion of love, 2) a need for punishment, 3) a payment for future rewards, 4) a strategy of the weak or powerless, 5) a flight from selfhood, or 6) an effort to be an object for others. In each case, religious analogies can be found exhibiting the same dynamics. Thus, certain religious phenomena may provide cultural or collective responses to the psychological needs at the root of masochism.240