理解个人主义要正本清源——兼与黄显中同志商榷

个人主义作为资本主义社会的主流意识形态 ,有其深刻的现实根源 ,并不是理性发展的结果。市民社会与个人主义之间并没有必然联系。个人主义与集体主义存在根本的冲突。为了巩固集体主义在公民道德建设的主导地位 ,我们必须全面地认识个人主义。     

个人主义与市民社会——关于个人主义的一种解释

个人主义是西方化发展的一条主线。个人主义可分为极端个人主义与合理个人主义两种。过去人们认为个人主义是在资本主义发展过程中逐步形成的道德原则,与资本主义制度相适应。实际上个人主义是以商品经济为基础的市民社会的产物,资本主义有市民社会,社会主义有市民社会,个人主义在社会主义国家也存在。只是社会主义国家以建立“真正的”集体主义为道德目标,所以它极力反对极端个人主义,只允许合理个人主义存在和发展,并且限制于市场社会领域,反对泛滥于国家生活领域。     

网络化社会的道德问题及基本伦理规范

网络的出现给人类生活带来巨大变化,就道德领域而言,它在带给人无限憧憬的同时,又使人面对道德主体的责任缺失、道德情感冷漠、不道德行为大量客观存在等问题,这些网络道德问题的出现,使得当前提出网络伦理的基本原则和规范,加强网络伦理的建设成为必要。     

Initiating the creation of a procedurally secular society through dialogic RE. The three realms

ABSTRACT

The interim report of the Commission on Religious Education drew attention to the use of ‘safe space’ within schools to encourage the exchange of differing world-views. The doctoral research discussed herein builds upon previous action research that analysed the development of dialogic skills within a school’s safe space. This new research examines two types of talk – cumulative (building consensus) and exploratory (constructive criticism) – that are held to be at the heart of human reasoning. Sixty-five students from 10 different secondary schools in the UK undertook paired conversations that were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Additionally, the students completed questionnaire surveys with respect to deep learning and these were analysed by means of a Chi-Square Test for statistical significance. The positive findings indicate that dialogic RE within a school’s safe space is an appropriate pedagogy for the creation of a procedurally secular society, such as the three realms model, that envisages a renewed public sphere in which citizens are encouraged to exchange world-views through reasoning.     

THE MORALITY,POLITICS, AND IRONY OF WAR: Recovering Reinhold Niebuhr's Ethical Realism

The American experience of war is ironic. That is, there is often an intimate and unexamined relationship between seemingly contrary elements in war such as morality and politics. This article argues that without understanding such irony, we are unlikely to reflect in morally comprehensive ways on past, present, or future wars. Traditional schools of thought, however, such as moralism and political realism, reinforce these apparent contradictions. I propose, then, an alternative—“ethical realism” as informed by Reinhold Niebuhr—that better explains the irony of war. Through an ethical realist examination of the U.S. Civil War, World War II, and the Iraq War, I consider how American political interests have been inextricably linked with deep moral concerns. Ethical realism charts a middle path that ennobles traditional realpolitik while eschewing certain perfectionist tendencies of moralism. Ethical realism provides a conceptual framework for evaluating these other frameworks—a distinct form of moral‐political deliberation about war.     

Family: Introductory paper

Changes in the family make it difficult to define any typical structure. What is most striking is the role of the child, henceforth the holder of certain recognized rights, within a group whose mutual relations are based on the notion of a contract. In this way, we can talk of a family citizenship, acting as the basis for citizenship in society.     

Sharʿī norms and German Schools: Court Challenges to Participation in Swimming Lessons,School Trips and Sex Education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the treatment by German courts, from the early 1970s to 2016, of requests made by Muslims to be exempted from school activities for religious reasons. Based on a qualitative reading of 72 court rulings, the article demonstrates a shift in the courts’ decision-making, from initially tolerating Muslim requests for exemption to firmly denying them. Arguments from the court rulings are substantiated by an analysis of the public discourse on Muslims in German schools. The results suggest that the transformation of court attitudes corresponded with the rise of broader concerns about multiculturalism and manifestations of Islam in the public sphere, the liberalization of gender norms, and increasing secularism within German society. The article further demonstrates that, contrary to public perception, requests for exemptions from school activities were not a distinctly Muslim phenomenon. Christian families have challenged school activities in a similar way.     

How Civil Society Organisations Changed the Regulation of Clinical Trials in India

ABSTRACT

In 2005 India changed its pharmaceutical and innovation policy that facilitated a dramatic increase in international clinical trials involving study sites in India. This policy shift was surrounded by controversies; civil society organisations (CSOs) criticised the Indian government for promoting the commercialisation of pharmaceutical research and development. Health social movements in India fought for social justice through collective action, and engaged in normative reasoning of the benefits, burdens and equality of research. They lobbied to protect trial participants from structural violence that occurred especially in the first 5–6 years of the new policy. CSOs played a major role in the introduction of new regulations in 2013, which accelerated a decline in the number of global trials carried out in India. This activism applied interpretations of global social justice as key ideas in mobilisation, eventually helping to institutionalise stricter ethical regulation on a national level. Like government and industry, activists believed in randomised controlled trials and comparison as key methods for scientific knowledge production. However, they had significant concerns about the global hierarchies of commercial pharmaceutical research, and their impact on the rights of participants and on benefits for India overall. Pointing to ethical malpractices and lobbying for stricter ethical regulations, they aimed to ensure justice for research participants, and developed effective strategies to increase controls over the business side of clinical research.