Market Equality and Social Freedom

ABSTRACT Conflicts between the good of each and the good of all are often presented in terms of freedom versus equality, with liberals pulled one way by libertarians and the other by social democrats. When we distinguish between negative and positive notions not only of freedom but also of equality, the liberal freedom 'to pursue our own good in our own way'is a positive freedom involving a negative idea of equality (or 'equity'). Yet 'equity'is not strong enough to deal with the problem of public goods. Trust is a public good, essential if markets are to work and dependable only where there is a moral commitment to a positive basic equality among citizens.     

Freedom, Equality, Minarets

This paper discusses the Swiss minaret ban as a threat to equal citizenship rather than a threat to freedom of religion. The main argument of the paper is that cultural differences can threaten the fair value of equal political participation rights as well as socio-economic ones. These differences are morally troubling despite legitimate emphasis on the need for a shared (political) culture. To ensure that the state treats its citizens as equals with regard to cultural differences requires a form of liberal neutrality which consists of two elements. Equal citizenship requires, first, justificatory neutrality in deciding which matters are legitimate concerns for legislation. It requires also—as a second safeguard—institutional arrangements which ensure that in the process of implementing justificatory neutral decisions the interests of all affected citizens receive a fair hearing. This means that the factors which tend to undermine the equal standing of citizens in society should be counteracted.     

从“自性”走向精神生命的“自由”与“平等”——庄子哲学理路解析

万事万物各具其理,其本原又与天地同归一气,气绵延统贯于万象,道承载于“天地之气”,“道体”亦即内在于主体的故有本性、规律。万事万物的本体自性俱足,无须孜孜向外求道,只需求诸于内。“自性”即主体自我反省时的迥然一念明觉,自性呈露既是“天道”,又是独具的“生成之理”,是“道”与“理”的统合。万物但能清虚自守,复归自性,“万物一体”之“道”即如如显现。纵然天地间万事万物各有所待,但当境自足,于是就形成了一个万象归复自性,又实则趋向于“道”的秩序井然的宇宙论模态与本体论体系。由自我本性之朗现,人之自性与物之自性和谐感应,故凡天下之物皆无不好,意见皆无不对,而得出万物齐同平等,主体精神生命“自由”实现的圆融哲学理路。     

Why Egalitarians Should Not Care About Equality

Can outcome equality (say, in welfare) ever be unjust? Despite the extensive inquiry into the nature of luck egalitarianism in recent years, this question is curiously under-explored. Leading luck egalitarians pay little attention to the issue of unjust equalities, and when they do, they appear not to speak in one voice. To facilitate the inquiry into the potential injustice of equalities, the paper introduces two rival interpretations of egalitarianism: the responsibility view, which may condemn equalities as unjust (when they reflect unequal levels of personal responsibility); and, the non-responsibility view, which does not. It then teases out the implications of these two views, in the hope of establishing that the latter is at least as plausible as the former. The paper thus establishes that the egalitarian ideal can be plausibly formulated in a way that condemns only (certain) inequalities but never equalities, and that this formulation is both coherent and attractive.     

何以要平等：康德、罗尔斯与阿马蒂亚·森

人际差异要求平等正义理论在探求"什么要平等"(平等的内容)之前,回答"为什么要平等"(平等的根据),后者对确认现代世界不公正的经济不平等及其解决具有重要意义。由阿马蒂亚·森明确提出却未能坚持到底的平等内容与根据之区分,在罗尔斯处的可能线索是作为平等根据的"人的特征",并可进一步明晰为康德意义上人之为人的本质特征,即"作为目的自身的人性"。作为社会正义价值的平等,就是要尊重人性,摒弃一切偶然因素而把每一个人都当作目的自身来平等对待,不但有关首要善品与资源等客观方面的平等分配正义如此,而且对于个人将客观条件转化为自身福利的能力等主观差异方面亦是必要的。     

Equality of Opportunity and Other-Affecting Choice: Why Luck Egalitarianism Does Not Require Brute Luck Equality

The luck egalitarian view famously maintains that inequalities in individuals’ circumstances are unfair or unjust, whereas inequalities traceable to individuals’ own responsible choices are fair or just. On this basis, the distinction between so-called brute luck and option luck has been seen as central to luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism is interpreted, by advocates and opponents alike, as a view that condemns inequalities in brute luck but permits inequalities in option luck. It is also thought to be expressed in terms of the view that no individual ought to be worse off other than because of a fault or choice of his or her own. I argue that these two characterizations of luck egalitarianism are not equivalent and that, properly understood, luck egalitarianism is compatible with widespread, potentially radical, inequalities in brute luck.     

从自由与平等的关系看获取正义

获取之正义乃是人类的千古困惑.获取正义之原则必须而且只能从社会主义社会理念中导出,该理念是:人人生而自由,人人生而平等,没有贵族,没有特权,没有压迫,没有剥削,公共职位向所有公民开放,人人有权选择并努力实现自己所向往的幸福生活.在此理念之下,自由与平等之关系是:公民之间的平等是基于自由权利的平等.社会主义社会理念下的获取正义包括:每个公民都有从自然资源中获取收益的社会权利;合法的市场交易所得;其他合法途径,如遗产继承、馈赠等.任何一个认同社会主义社会理念的人均不赞成公共财政充当劫富济贫的"佐罗"角色,但保障每个公民都能够从自然资源的收益中获得生存资料乃是政府之责任、公民之权利,税收资源的主要功能是创造和维护社会秩序、保障本民族的集体安全、满足公共事务的需要.     

Charity Implies Meta-Charity

The principle of charity says that all agents are rational. The principle of meta-charity says that all agents believe all agents are rational. My thesis is that the arguments which are used to support charity also support meta-charity. Meta-charity implies meta-meta-charity. By recursion, the principle of charity implies that it is common knowledge. But there appears to be intelligent, well-informed disagreement with the principle of charity. So if the entailment thesis holds, opponents of the principle of charity have a new objection to the principle. Defenders of the principle of charity must either refute the entailment thesis or accept much stronger consequences than they expected.
"As I am, so I see."—Ralph Waldo Emerson     

Binary Refinement Implies Discrete Exponentiation

Working in the weakening of constructive Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory in which the subset collection scheme is omitted, we show that the binary re.nement principle implies all the instances of the exponentiation axiom in which the basis is a discrete set. In particular binary re.nement implies that the class of detachable subsets of a set form a set. Binary re.nement was originally extracted from the fullness axiom, an equivalent of subset collection, as a principle that was su.cient to prove that the Dedekind reals form a set. Here we show that the Cauchy reals also form a set. More generally, binary refinement ensures that one remains in the realm of sets when one starts from discrete sets and one applies the operations of exponentiation and binary product a finite number of times. Presented by Victor Marek     

Reproductive Freedom, Educational Equality, And Females' Preference for Resource-Acquisition Characteristics in Mates

Females' preference for resource-acquisition characteristics in mates has been explained as an evolved psychological mechanism that conveyed reproductive advantage to human ancestors. To explore the hypothesis that females express this preference more strongly when their educational opportunities and reproductive freedom are limited, we reanalyzed mate-preference data collected from 37 cultures by Buss et al. (1990). The results demonstrate that females (but not males) strongly prefer resource-acquisition characteristics in mates when they live in cultures low in both female reproductive freedom and educational equality between the sexes. Discussion focuses on how evolutionary, interactionist, and social-role theories might explain these results.     

知识产权价值追求中的二律背反：自由与平等的冲突

知识产权制度体现了对自由与平等的价值追求与维护.然而,自由与平等本身有着不同的内涵和目标,分别代表着理性主义的不同方面,反映了不同的价值取向.知识产权中自由与平等的价值追求内在地相互冲突.在现实生活中,知识产权中自由与平等的冲突主要表现为知识专有与平等接近的冲突、知识垄断与平等竞争的冲突、财产自由与财产平等的冲突.知识产权中自由与平等的冲突是无法避免的,也是无法消除的.知识产权只有根据社会实践发展的需要,努力寻找自由与平等的最佳平衡点,在最大程度上实现自由与平等.     

协调自由与平等的冲突——孙中山正义思想研究

自由与平等之间的冲突在我国20世纪上半叶已初露端倪。孙中山敏锐地意识到妥善处理两者关系的重要性,试图协调自由与平等的冲突,使自由、平等、博爱真正落到实处。正如美国学者史扶邻所说:“他为之奋斗的不仅是中国的现代化,而且是带有社会正义与公平的现代化。”[1]孙中山在处理自由与平等问题上的经验教训是当代中国社会的一笔宝贵精神财富。一自由与平等的冲突自由是智慧之源,自由释放出的智慧与力量,有善有恶,有利有弊,但我们并不能因为自由产生的恶、弊而藐视自由,剥夺人们最基本的自由权利。如果是这样,就会导致对人类生活的奴役,从而…     

Moral Evil,Freedom and the Goodness of God: Why Kant Abandoned Theodicy

Kant proclaimed that all theodicies must fail in ‘On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, but it is mysterious why he did so since he had developed a theodicy of his own during the critical period. In this paper, I offer an explanation of why Kant thought theodicies necessarily fail. In his theodicy, as well as in some of his works in ethics, Kant explained moral evil as resulting from unavoidable limitations in human beings. God could not create finite beings without such limitations and so could not have created humans that were not prone to committing immoral acts. However, the work of Carl Christian Eberhard Schmid showed Kant that given his own beliefs about freedom and the nature of responsibility one could not account for moral evil in this way without tacitly denying that human beings were responsible for their actions. This result is significant not only because it explains an otherwise puzzling shift in Kant's philosophy of religion, but also because it shows that the theodicy essay provides powerful evidence that Kant's thinking about moral evil and freedom underwent fundamental shifts between early works such as the Groundwork and later works like the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason.     

被自由误导的自由

本文主要分析了自由以及表现为权利自由的政治哲学问题,其中着重批评了伯林的两种自由模式,试图论证,不自由切割为两种,将导致对自由的各种误解。所谓消极自由和积极自由只是同一种自由的两面,但伯林问题可以转换为消极权利和积极权利问题,这样就可以消除混乱。