The Great Apes and the Severely Disabled: Moral Status and Thick Evaluative Concepts

The literature of bioethics suffers from two serious problems. (1) Most authors are unable to take seriously both the rights of the great apes and of severely disabled human infants. Rationalism—moral status rests on rational capacities—wrongly assigns a higher moral status to the great apes than to all severely disabled human infants with less rational capacities than the great apes. Anthropocentrism—moral status depends on membership in the human species—falsely grants all humans a higher moral status than the great apes. Animalism—moral status is dependent on the ability to suffer—mistakenly equates the moral status of humans and most animals. (2) The concept person is widely used for justificatory purposes, but it seems that it cannot play such a role. It seems that it is either redundant or unable to play any justificatory role. I argue that we can solve the second problem by understanding person as a thick evaluative concept. This then enables us to justify assigning a higher moral status to the great apes than to simple animals: the great apes are persons. To solve the first problem, I argue that certain severely disabled infants have a higher moral status than the great apes because they are dependent upon human relationships for their well-being. Only very limited abilities are required for such relationships, and the question who is capable of them must be based on thick evaluative concepts. Thus, it turns out that to make progress in bioethics we must assign thick evaluative concepts a central role.

道·人·史:《淮南子》的论治维度及思想史意义

《淮南子》以论“治”为全书主旨,而其论治又从“道”、“人”、“史”三个维度展开:其一,道为《淮南子》论治的基础,道有能治之功;其二,人为《淮南子》论治的中心,人有可治之性;其三,史为《淮南子》论治的起点,史有证治之用。其书对“道”、“人”、“史”概念的理解与使用,既体现了先秦思想资源的深切影响,也表明了汉初学术务实致用的倾向。     

Human factors in GIScience laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University

The human factors in GIScience Laboratory (Human Factors Lab) of The Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Geography is located in University Park, PA (USA). University Park and bordering State College, PA are found in the heart of PA between the cities of New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, and Pittsburgh, PA. The laboratory is directed by Dr. Alexander Klippel and is part of the GeoVISTA Center. The Human Factors Lab contributes to Penn State Geography’s strong tradition as a leader in research on map perception, spatial cognition, and behavior in spatial environments. This report focuses upon basic research topics in spatial cognition, including: (1) perceptual and cognitive factors in map symbolization and design, (2) the creation of cognitively ergonomic route directions for next generation location based services (LBS), (3) You-Are-Here maps and the creation of a sense of place through map-like representations, (4) the conceptualization and representation of dynamic phenomena (i.e., geographic movement pattern), and (5) the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic conceptualization.     

面对21世纪的人类“圣餐” 中国该怎样分享

人类基因组计划（ＨｕｍａｎＧｅｎｏｍｅＰｒｏｊｅｃｔ,ＨＧＰ）实施７年来已取得巨大进展,不断涌现的新技术、新策略使人基因组全长测序有望在今后几年内提前完成,结构基因组学时代正向功能基因组学时代过渡。然而,发达国家之间的基因争夺战亦愈演愈烈,中国现正面临着严峻挑战。本文简要介绍了ＨＧＰ研究的国际背景、最新进展及发展趋势,目的在于分析目前我国ＨＧＰ研究所存在的问题和探讨其发展对策