Globalization, Population Aging, and Ethics, Part II: Toward a Just Global Society

In Globalization, Population Aging, and Ethics, Part I (2001), we described how globalization, through the neoliberal policies imposed by international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank) has substantially reduced the capacities of developing countries to meet the educational, economic, and healthcare needs of their growing populations. We also described how these needs will increase over the next several decades with the huge growth of the elderly population across Asia and Latin America. We concluded our analysis with a discussion of the ethical implications of this increasing discrepancy between resource capacity and human needs in the developing world and two perspectives (Rawls's theory of justice and liberation philosophy, 2000) that could help sharpen the debate over the ethics of globalization. In this article, we summarize our analysis and discussion of Part I and include new information from additional sources. We then extend our discussion of the ethical implications of this analysis by describing a range of political and policy options that we think are consistent with the ethical perspective suggested in Part I and that have the potential to help reduce the widening gap between resource capacity and human need in many developing countries.     

全球化与新闻伦理文化

在传播全球化成为世界潮流的情况下,媒体面临的冲击直接和激烈;因东西方化价值体系的差异,当传播跨越化产生互动时,难免失谐和冲突。为应对挑战,进一步加强社会主义新闻伦理化建设刘不容缓。     

关于全球伦理的哲学审思

全球化过程有两个基本方面：一是科学技术的发展,一是资本主义的发展。迄今为止的全球化过程是资本主义利用不断更新的科学技术来实现自己发展的过程,此过程的社会实质在于资本主义全球化——包括资本主义经济全球化和与之相适应的资本主义伦理全球化。然而,诸如反全球化浪潮之美的国际现象和国际事件表明,原来作为全球化之推动力量的资本主义,如今正在走向其反面,愈来愈成为全球化的阻碍力量了;而日益严重的全球性生态危机,更其表明资本主义再也不能按其固有的方式存在和发展了。因此,客观上要求变革现存的资本主义经济制度及其伦理——包括资本主义经济理性、人理性和科学理性。适应解决当今全球性生态危机的需要,一种新伦理——生态伦理正在形成之中,它有望最终演变为取代传统资本主义伦理的全球伦理。     

量子伦理视域下健康伦理发展的反思

量子力学自诞生之日引发了对传统哲学的思考与怀疑,以量子哲学为基础发展起来的量子伦理观点,对新时期发展健康伦理提供不同的研究视角。健康伦理在我国经过长期发展,呈现出内涵不断深化、目标逐渐明确以及健康责任去中心化的特点。在量子伦理的人与自然和谐共生的自然观、万物具有智慧性内在本性的责任观基础上,反思健康伦理的内涵与目标。健康伦理应以维护整体健康为目标,发扬人类自身生命之力为主要内涵,认识到健康影响因素的复杂性,加强新时期健康伦理理论的研究。

     

Behavioral Genetics, Health, and Aging

A recurring observation from studies of health in the elderly is the pervasiveness of individual differences. For many health-related endpoints, total variation appears to increase across age group; however, few longitudinal studies have reported whether these age differences reflect true age-related changes. There are a growing number of twin studies of aging that provide some insight, at least cross-sectionally, into the nature of individual differences in health. Increases in total variance most often reflect increases in environmental sources of variance. Covariation among traits reflects both genetic and environmental mediation, dependent on the sex of the sample and the measures of interest. Co-twin control approaches have been successful in exploring the role of environmental influences as risk factors for poor health. The most serious limitation to these studies is the lack of longitudinal information to disentangle survival and selection effects from aging.     

Psychology and Aging: Enhancing the Lives of an Aging Population

A pressing need for upcoming decades is ensuring that older adults, who constitute an increasing percentage of the population, are able to function independently and maintain an acceptable quality of life. One important concern is the usability of new technologies. Unfortunately, the science that could direct proper design and implementation of current and future technological advancement is underdeveloped and less mature than the engineering that supports technological advancement. We review data documenting age-related usability issues and how psychological science can remedy such problems. We also outline how training principles can be applied to older adults. We conclude that psychological science has much to contribute to the goal of enhancing the lives of older adults.     

当代中国医德建设与相对主义医学伦理学

当代西方相对主义医学伦理学有许多建树,但也有其致命性的缺陷,这就是否定医学道德的客观绝对性和普遍性医学伦理准则。在引进、介绍了这种学说之后,需要下功夫同它进行对话,即以医德绝对性与相对性辩证统一的原理,对这种学说进行追问,从中借鉴有益的经验和教训,以顺利全面地推进我国当代的医学道德建设。     

A Preface to Ethics:

This essay outlines a new preface for ethics demanded by the massive developments of the global age. It does so in and through the comparative use of “myths” to explicate the lived structure of experience. The essay begins by isolating main features of global dynamics, including proximity, the compression of the world and the expansion of consciousness, and also global, cultural reflexivity. In the second step of the “preface,” it is argued that globality itself is a moral space in which peoples must orient their lives. It is a moral space defined by the massive extension of human power in the modern world. In light of the challenge that global dynamics and the extension of human power now pose, the essay then isolates, methodologically, options for developing a global ethics, and advocates a distinctly hermeneutical approach. This approach is practiced in the last section of the “preface” by engaging ethically the biblical “myth” of creation and its reinterpretation in an epitome of Jesus's Torah teaching. The intention is to show how current religious thought can speak to massive challenges in a distinctive way. It is, again, to offer a preface to ethics.     

Globalization in Light of Luther's Eucharistic Economic Ethics

This article suggests that Christ “filling all things,” and abiding in a special way in the assembly of believers, offers moral agency for faithful response to economic structures that gravely threaten Earth's regenerative capacities. That claim is explored through Luther's theology of Christ indwelling creation held together with his eucharistic economic ethics, his call to certain practices, his refusal to minimize the pervasiveness of human sin, and his insistence that in brokenness and defeat the saving God is present and calls forth power. The trends designated by the term “globalization,” as used in this essay, are clarified. Dangers posed to the Earth community by that constellation of trends are illustrated.     

AIDS: Globalization and Its Discontents

Abstract. HIV/AIDS has changed from a disease of white gay men in the United States to a pandemic that largely involves women and dependent children in developing countries. Many theologies of disease are necessary to cope with the variety of expressions of this pandemic. Christian theoethical reflection on HIV/AIDS has been largely focused on sexual ethics, with uneven and mainly unhelpful results. Among the ethical issues that shape future useful conversations are globalized economics and resource sharing, the morality and economics of the pharmaceutical industry, and the need for sex education and access to reproductive choice. Considering such issues in international, interreligious, multiscientific contexts is a concrete next step for the religion‐and‐science dialogue. It will put the powerful tools of both fields to the service of the common good.     

Globalization and counterdevelopment: The importance of new narratives

The article is a personal recount of living under the called neoliberal regime installed in the post-Cold War in the region. Written from the perspective of a Latin American woman in the betweenness of the North and the South. Focusing on capitalism history shows how counterdevelopment has been the other face of globalization. The social protests in the whole continent request the respect of human dignity recovering an inclusive collective narrative and social justice caring of our common home, to build a more profound democracy and a more just world.     

Ethics and Culture in Mental Health Care

This article examines the complex relationship between culture, values, and ethics in mental health care. Cultural competence is a practical, concrete demonstration of the ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence (doing good), nonmaleficence (not doing harm), and justice (treating people fairly)—the cornerstones of modern ethical codes for the health professions. Five clinical cases are presented to illustrate the range of ethical issues faced by mental health clinicians working in a multicultural environment, including issues of therapeutic boundaries, diagnosis, treatment choice, confidentiality and informed consent, and the just distribution of limited health care resources.     

Christian Ethics,Religious Ethics,and Secular Ethics: A Contemporary Reappraisal

In this essay, I argue that Christian ethicists should not think of themselves as religious ethicists. I defend this claim by arguing that the concept of religious ethics, as it has come to be understood as a discipline that is distinct from secular ethics, is incoherent. In part one, I describe the fraught attempts by theologians in the 20th century to identify the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. In part two, I argue that certain accounts of natural law unwittingly reinforce a problematic conception of secular ethics. Part three examines some trends in religious studies and comparative religious ethics to highlight problematic conceptions of religion. Drawing together these strands of inquiry, I contend that that the secular-religious dichotomy in contemporary ethics should be rejected, but by the same token, I suggest that comparative ethics remains a worthwhile enterprise.     

COVID-19 and Religious Ethics

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID-19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.     

Vulnerable Women and Neo-Liberal Globalization: Debt Burdens Undermine Women's Health in the Global South

Contemporary processes of globalization havebeen accompanied by a serious deterioration inthe health of many women across the world. Particularly disturbing is the drastic declinein the health status of many women in theglobal South, as well as some women in theglobal North. This paper argues that thehealth vulnerability of women in the globalSouth is inseparable from their political andeconomic vulnerability. More specifically, itlinks the deteriorating health of many Southernwomen with the neo-liberal economic policiesthat characterize contemporary economicglobalization and argues that this structure issustained by the heavy burden of debtrepayments imposed on many Southern countries. In conclusion, it argues that many Southerndebt obligations are not morally bindingbecause they are not democraticallylegitimate.     

Ethics of Globalization and the AIDS Crisis from a Jewish Perspective

This essay explores what Jewish ethics has to say about globalization in relation to the AIDS crisis. Special attention is paid to the consequences in affirming current intellectual trends to transcend traditional limits in both society and thought for rethinking traditional Jewish values. The discussion proceeds from two presuppositions. The first is that there is an intimate connection between ethics, science, and politics. The second is that the history of Jewish ethics involves three distinct forms that are generally correlated but rarely identical in content and moral judgment. These three forms are law, wisdom or virtue, and covenant. The discussion considers related issues of accidental connections in time between the bubonic plague and Zionism and between AIDS and homosexuality in relation to moral–theological issues related to divine providence and distributive justice.     

Aging and sexuality

Many see old age as asexual but studies show that significant numbers of people 65 years old and older continue to desire and engage in acts of sexual intimacy as seem in long‐term care facilities and in cohabitation. Sexual ethics in the context of aging requires respect for the sexuality of older adults and sensitivity to their needs and challenges.     

Relational Ethics of Globalization under the COVID-19 Pandemic

Globalization has been going on for a long process, although controversial, never stopping the pace of development. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 which profoundly changed human society and human life, globalization has been facing unprecedented resistance and challenges. Returning to various debates on globalization ethics, analyzing various problems that occur in the process of globalization development, this article starts from relational ethics, aiming to demonstrate the rationality of the sustainable development of globalization in the post-pandemic era. It will argue that although globalization will have new forms and contents under the new situation, the overall trend will not be reversed. It stresses the significance and urgency to explore the discourse construction of the human community with a shared future and the relational ethics of globalization in the post-pandemic era from the perspectives of history, reality, and methodology.     

流行病学实践与研究相关的伦理学视角与思考

随着社会的发展,公共卫生领域的伦理学问题不断显露,有必要对其重新审视。探讨了目前在公共卫生领域流行病学实践与研究中存在和涉及到的一些伦理问题,有传染病报告、隔离、免疫规划、艾滋病防治、传染病应急机制、流行病学调查和试验研究等,并就公共卫生领域中的伦理实践原则进行了概括。     

Theological Ethics, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Law

The article deals with the relationship between theological ethics and moral philosophy. The former is seen as a theoretical reflection on Christian ethics, the latter as one on secular ethics. The main questions asked are: (1) Is there one and only one pre-theoretical knowledge about acting rightly? (2) Does philosophy provide us with the theoretical framework for understanding both Christian and secular ethics? Both questions are answered in the negative. In the course of argument, four positions are presented: theological ‘unificationism’, philosophical ‘unificationism’, theological ‘separationism’ and Lutheran ‘dualism’. It is argued that the latter position is most convincing. It is dual in the sense of being both a theory of Christian ethics and of including a recognition of natural law. Hence, it unites a particularistic and a universalistic point of view. In the last section a reformulation of the Lutheran position is attempted in making use of the ethical theory of Knud E. Løgstrup's The Ethical Demand.