"It's Us Against the World": How Distrust in Americans versus People-In-General Shapes Competitive Foreign Policy Preferences

Previous research has uncovered links between generalized distrust and preferences for competitive (vs. cooperative) action. However, based on individuals' tendency to hold consistent attitudes and to believe that their own political preferences are morally legitimate, it was hypothesized that the direction of the relationship between distrust and competitive foreign policy preferences would depend on which category individuals had in mind: Americans or people. Two correlational studies with American participants were consistent with this hypothesis. Study 1 showed that distrust in Americans versus people had qualitatively different relationships with support for competitive policy preferences (i.e., immigration control, militaristic action). Study 2 found that when the covariance between distrust in Americans and people was controlled, distrust in Americans predicted opposition to torture of suspected terrorists, whereas distrust in people predicted support for torture of suspected terrorists. Moreover, individual discrepancies between distrust in Americans versus people uniquely predicted support for torture. Finally, mediational analyses in both studies indicated that political conservatism explained the effects between distrust in Americans versus people and competitive policy preferences. It is argued that distrust in Americans and distrust in people are distinct but complementary bases of Americans' moral-political reasoning.     

Dugin Eurasianism: a window on the minds of the Russian elite or an intellectual ploy?

This paper considers the views of Alexander Dugin, a leading proponent of Eurasianism in contemporary Russia. The point of his teaching is the preservation of the traditional social/cultural make-up of each civilization. He also believes that the Russian Slavs together with the minorities of the Russian Federation constitute a quasi-unity of Eurasian civilization. He emphasizes that globalism, led by the USA, is a mortal threat to the cultural identity of Russia/Eurasia and all other civilizations. For this reason the USA and Russia are locked in mortal conflict with one other. At the outset of his intellectual career, in post-Soviet Russia, Dugin believed that Putin would follow the Eurasian road. It would be wrong to see Dugin as an intellectual guru at the head of the post-Soviet elite. Still, his views are important, for they indicate the kinds of ideas that circulate in the minds of the Russian elite.

抗菌药物合理应用的宏观和微观问题

抗菌药物不合理应用现象长期得不到纠正,细菌耐药稳步攀升,正引起医学界、社会和政府的高度关注。本文就宏观上的抗菌药物使用政策与微观上的临床用药两方面存在的问题进行探讨。介绍了国际上关于抗菌药物政策的研究以及抗菌药物合理使用的新观点（尽早开始经验性治疗、“降阶梯”治疗策略、运用抗菌药物PK／PD原理指导临床用药、短程治疗）。主张调整宏观抗生素策略,去除该政策单纯、片面限制使用和应用药敏实验结果指导临床用药绝对化的做法。吸纳国际上的新成果,强化监管力度,更多采用教育和技术手段。     

医疗决策的程序公正

由于社会满足不了所有的医疗需求,医疗决策问题变成了确定医疗的限度问题。由于社会对于限度决定很难获得共识,医疗决策要通过公正的程序获得。医疗决策不能由某个人或某个团体或权力机构做出,而应该通过民主协商来做出,否则,人们会质疑医疗决策的合法性。     

Human embryonic stem cell research and the discarded embryo argument

Many who believe that human embryos have moral status are convinced that their use in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research can be morally justified as long as they are discarded embryos left over from fertility treatments. This is one reason why this view about discarded embryos has played such a prominent role in the debate over publicly funding hESC research in the United States and other countries. Many believe that this view offers the best chance of a compromise between the different sides in this debate. This paper focuses on what seems to be the most plausible argument for this view about discarded embryos. It shows that this argument is unsound regardless of how one understands the claim that embryos have moral status. It also discusses the implications of this conclusion for attempts to use this argument as a basis for public policy.

Common marmosets (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Callithrix jacchus</Emphasis>) do not utilize social information in three simultaneous social foraging tasks

Social foraging is suggested to increase foraging efficiency, as individuals might benefit from public information acquired by monitoring the foraging activities of other group members. We conducted a series experiments with captive common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) to investigate to what extent marmosets utilize social information about food location when foraging simultaneously with conspecifics. Subjects were confronted with dominant and subordinate demonstrators in three experiments which differed in the amount of information about food location available to the demonstrators. In all three experiments, the focal subjects’ performance in the social condition was not enhanced in comparison to a non-social control condition. Because we could rule out kleptoparasitism and aggressive displacements as explanations, we argue that the subjects’ tendency for scramble competition by avoiding others and dispersing over the foraging area seems to inhibit or mask the acquisition of social information about the location of rewarded patches.     

Priorities of Global Justice

One-third of all human deaths are due to poverty-related causes, to malnutrition and to diseases that can be prevented or cured cheaply. Yet our politicians, academics, and mass media show little concern for how such poverty might be reduced. They are more interested in possible military interventions to stop human rights violations in developing countries, even though such interventions – at best – produce smaller benefits at greater cost. This Western priority may be rooted in self-interest. But it engenders, and is sustained by, a deeply flawed moral presentation of global economic cooperation. The new global economic order we impose aggravates global inequality and reproduces severe poverty on a massive scale. On any plausible understanding of our moral values, the prevention of such poverty is our foremost responsibility.     

Framing Foreign Policy Alternatives in the Inner Circle: President Carter, His Advisors, and the Struggle for the Arms Control Agenda

This article examines strategic framing efforts within the president's inner circle of foreign policy advisors. The comparative case study method is used to describe and explain the framing process involved in President Jimmy Carter's arms control decisions with respect to the Soviet Union. Carter's two central foreign policy advisors, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, portrayed the Soviets in very different terms. The premise underlying this study is that advisors attempt to frame their policy preferences favorably in order to influence the group process and the president's policy choice. Advisors do so by playing up the positive aspects of an option and downplaying any negative aspects. Three components of the framing process are explored: historical/cultural symbolism, personal beliefs and values, and political cost assessments.     

A Debate on the Ethics of Aging: Does the Concept of Autonomy Provide a Sufficient Framework for Aging Policy?

This article presents a debate on the issue of autonomy in aging policy held at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Society on Aging held in San Francisco, California. Harry R. Moody, director of the Institute for Human Values in Aging at Hunter College, supports a reconceptualized notion of personal autonomy which focuses on issues of power, theory, and practice, and finds conflicts between autonomy and justice in the lived world of the elderly and disabled. In aging policy, he promotes an emphasis on social movements such as Hospice rather than on autonomy of individuals. He suggests alternatives to extreme paternalism or complete autonomy, such as a communicative ethics approach. Larry Polivka, director of the Florida Policy Exchange Center on Aging at the University of South Florida, affirms that policy for the aging and disabled should be based ona commitment to autonomy. He describes an integrated model for long-term care that places autonomy first and includes features of communicative ethics and the negotiated consent and virtues models of ethics.     

政策环境对实现残疾人康复服务的影响

根据《上海市残疾人"人人享有康复服务"评价指标体系》,采用综合评价法,对上海市6个区残疾人康复工作进行评价。研究发现,残疾人康复政策环境实现率为96.3%,5个二级指标实现率均超过80%,三级指标达标率63.3%。应明确残疾人康复工作的重要性,将残疾人康复纳入政策工作计划,各区残疾人康复政策环境建设应协调平衡发展。