Why Freedom Implies Equality

ABSTRACT Equality and freedom have been represented as conflicting values. In this paper, I propose to argue that the idea of freedom has clear egalitarian implications.
Freedom is commonly represented as being negative or positive, but it has both senses in ordinary usage, and the distinction fails adequately to explain the relationship between views on freedom and poverty. An alternative representation of the concept distinguishes individual freedom, based on the autonomous individual, from social freedom, which sees freedom as a social relationship.
Equality implies the elimination of disadvantage. Freedom is a redistributive idea, implying that the freedom of some must be restricted to increase the freedom of others. Although the individual concept of freedom is restrictive, equal treatment and equality of opportunity are largely compatible with it, and even equality of outcome can be reconciled with it to some degree. The social concept of freedom is broader, extending the scope of redistribution to all forms of social disadvantage. This demands a high degree of equality; it also defines the boundaries of the pursuit of equality, which is justifiable in so far as it increases freedom.
Freedom is not, therefore, in conflict with equality. Certain egalitarian assumptions are part of its normative base, and it actively requires a degree of redistribution.     

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     

论慈善的道德精神

从道德视角来审视,慈善包含着丰富的价值理念和人文诉求,体现了对生命和人的价值的敬畏。慈善之爱表现了关注人的生命和价值的人道精神;展现了一切从人的现实需要出发,关爱所有人的博爱情怀;体现了超越一切功利考量的无私奉献精神;折射了从动物到人的伟大历史进步。     

论企业的慈善责任

慈善既体现了人们对构建美好社会以及美好生活的愿望,也蕴涵了人们对社会对他人所应承担的社会责任的一种自觉意识.而企业作为一种营利性组织,其社会责任体系中乃包含着慈善责任.慈善责任在企业社会责任体系中举最高层次,是企业主观意识到的自主自愿承担的责任,它不具有其他责任与义务如经济和法律责任的强制性特征.企业承担社会慈善责任,符合社会的倡导与公众的期望,但其对慈善责任的承担是有限度的,即企业承担社会慈善责任应与自身的承受能力和企业自身的正常生产以及可持续发展相适应,应量力而行.     

试论中国特色现代慈善事业

慈善是人类共同的文明,而现代慈善事业是以与市场经济相适应为价值取向的.中国走向世界,发展中国特色现代慈善事业是题中应有之义.这就需要从人类共同的慈善文明中建构通古今融中西的适合我国国情的慈善价值观,使其在展现中华文明、缩小贫富差距和促进社会和谐中发挥重要作用.     

中国慈善事业的发展与需要努力的方向——背景、意识、法制、机制

慈善事业是弘扬互助友爱精神和建设积极向上的伦理道德的最好途径与方式,具有缩小收入差距、化解社会矛盾、促进共享发展成果的不可替代的客观功效。中国的慈善事业面临着十分有利的时代背景,但同时也面临着慈善意识落后、法制建设滞后、慈善机制发育不良等诸多制约。因此,改良国民的慈善意识是发展中国慈善事业的基础工程,健全完善慈善法制是发展中国慈善事业的根本保证,促使慈善组织运行机制发育成熟则是发展中国慈善事业的关键所在。作者强调,构建和谐社会离不开慈善事业的发展,建立在互助友爱基础之上的各种慈善事业应当成为构建和谐社会的必要且重要的内容,慈善事业的大发展,将促使中国现代化强国之路走得更加文明、更加协调。     

论犹太慈善组织和传统

以公义为核心的慈善活动是犹太教道德生活的一个重要内容。在犹太教教义中,行善是上帝的诫命,是犹太人特别是犹太富人应当履行的义务。在这一原则的指导下,犹太人自圣经时代就发展出十一税等许多救困扶贫的慈善活动,到拉比犹太教和中世纪时期,犹太人又逐渐发展出众多慈善组织和机制,犹太人的慈善传统日益走向成熟。犹太慈善传统有着不同于其他民族文化的独到之处,这不仅对于犹太人有着重要的意义,对我国社会主义和谐社会建设也有积极借鉴之处。     

慈善组织、政府与市场

尽管在中国历史上,有慈善的思想,在近代,随着西方传教士的出现,出现了慈善机构.但是有现代特征的慈善机构,包含综合了中西方文化精髓和管理方式的慈善机构,却是近些年的事情.本文试图搞清慈善组织的独特的作用与特征,理顺慈善机构和其他方面发展的相互作用和关系.利用西方的经验与理论,特别是英国的例子,来帮助阐述中国的慈善组织.     

Charity, Supervenience, and Skepticism

In a number of articles Donald Davidson has argued that the charitable nature of his method of radical interpretation rules out the possibility of massive error and thus refutes Cartesian skepticism. The diversity of such arguments and the suggestions that are all being made under the name of the principle of charity have prompted a large body of conflicting responses, adding only to the obscurity of the issues that are generally associated with the question of skepticism. In this paper I propose to consider the debate in a new light by reconstruing the principle of charity as a supervenience constraint on belief attribution. This would help explain some of the puzzling features of Davidson's arguments, like the idea of an omniscient interpreter, and the ensuing commentaries. Having provided an analysis of the limitations of Davidson's arguments, I shall then suggest an alternative explanation of the purported necessity of the principle of charity. Finally, having construed the principle of charity as a supervenience constraint, I shall examine what consequences this construal has for the logical status of the principle itself and its alleged epistemic potentials.     

现代慈善事业及其在中国的发展

慈善事业是建立在社会捐献基础之上的民营社会性救助事业,是一种混合型分配方式。慈善事业以社会成员的善爱之心为道德基础,以贫富差别的存在为社会基础,以社会捐献为经济基础,以民营机构为组织基础,以捐献者的意愿为实施基础,以社会成员的普遍参与为发展基础。在阐述慈善事业的组织与运行机制的条件下,讨论了处理好慈善事业发展中的若干关系问题。提出中国不仅需要发展慈善事业,而且具备发展慈善事业的基本条件,目前的关键在于对慈善事业进行合理定位并进一步完善慈善法制等     

‘Ought Implies Can’: Not So Pragmatic After All

Those who want to deny the ‘ought implies can’ principle often turn to weakened views to explain ‘ought implies can’ phenomena. The two most common versions of such views are (a) that ‘ought’ presupposes ‘can’, and (b) that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. This paper will reject both views, and in doing so, present a case against any pragmatic view of ‘ought implies can’. Unlike much of the literature, I won't rely on counterexamples, but instead will argue that each of these views fails on its own terms. ‘Ought’ and ‘can’ do not obey the negation test for presupposition, and they do not obey the calculability or the cancelability tests for conversational implicature. I diagnose these failures as partly a result of the importance of the contrapositive of ‘ought implies can’. I end with a final argument emphasizing the role the principle plays in moral thinking, and the fact that no pragmatic account can do it justice.     

市民社会与中国慈善组织的发育

本文把慈善组织的发育置于社会结构转型和社会福利制度改革的背景之下,探讨了市民社会与中国慈善组织发育之间的关系,认为慈善组织的发育是中国市民社会成长的重要标志。但在当前市民社会发育不足的背景下,在构建以政府责任为主、以社会化服务为辅的社会福利体制改革的过程中,慈善组织的发育受制于政府自上而下的推动,政府应当在慈善立法、弘扬慈善文化、组织管理和财政支持等方面发挥作用。