诚信的道德价值

信用是市场经济运行的道德基础;信誉是企业良性发展的基石;诚信不仅是人际交往的基础,也是个人自我完善的要求。     

对以边沁、密尔为代表的功利主义的分析批判

边沁的功利主义为苦乐原理、效果论和功利原则这样三个理论基点所构成。这是一个有着内在逻辑困境的三原理。苦乐原理由于没有进行内在的质的区分,为密尔所修正,但密尔的修正突出了苦乐原理与效果论的内在不一致;同时,密尔以自我牺牲来补充功利主义,又暴露了功利主义原则的内在矛盾。还有,密尔以平等权利来为功利主义的最大幸福原理辩护,恰恰表明功利原则并非是可以成为一个理论的基础性原则或终极原则。斯马特的行动功利主义则进一步暴露了功利主义的非正义性特性。功利主义的这样三个典范表明仅仅诉诸功利原则无从走出内在逻辑困境。布兰特援引认知理论以及道义论原则,笔认为这才使功利主义从其困境中走出。     

论中国入世后的道德应对

中国入世给道德嬗变提供了现实基础和动力,本从分析经济全球化两种道德话语入手,提出中国入世后的道德建设主要应着力于继续高举爱国主义伟大旗帜,建立起经济活动中的“诚信”机制和寻求“绿色壁垒”的伦理跨跃。     

企业诚信及其实现机制——以“海尔”为例

诚信是伦理关系范畴,作为企业来说,既要诚信于顾客,也要诚信于内部员工和外部同行。并且,企业诚信品质的形成和企业诚信的实现不是一蹴而就的,它需要企业内外部各种力量和手段的协调和支撑。     

“善良意志”与道德权限

“善良意志”是康德伦理学的核心概念,他将善良意志提升到道德领域的至善地位,从而确定了道德的纯粹性。他还借助善良意志划分了善与恶的界限,指明了责任作为检验善恶的标准,将传统德性论的品质和功用主义的幸福都排除在道德领域之外。由此,康德还将伦理与道德的界限做了区分,他强调伦理与道德各自明确自身的权责,从而充分发挥各自的作用。     

Rough‐and‐tumble play in human children

Rough and tumble (R&T) play is a unique set of behaviors that can be reliably distinguished from aggression and other childhood activities. Although it may be the most fundamental form of play, it has received comparatively little experimental attention in the human species. Forty children, ages three to six, were allowed to play in pairs (10 male pairs, 10 female pairs) during a 30 minute videotaped session with no toys available while music played in the background during every other five‐minute time period. The incidence frequency of children's play and related behavioral activities were scored using 20 behavioral categories. The major findings show only modest gender differences in the frequency of play behaviors in such controlled social encounters; the main difference is that boys engaged in slightly more physical play solicitations than girls. Music facilitated General Motor Activities (e.g., Running and Walking behaviors), but not specific R&T play actions (e.g., Wrestling, Ventral and Dorsal contacts). Finally, most play behaviors as well as general activities declined systematically over the course of each recording session. This experiment highlights how human social play can be systematically studied in a controlled laboratory setting. Aggr. Behav. 29:539–551, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Quantum Mechanics and "Song of Myself": Getting a Grip on Reality

Most recent writing linking science and literature has concerned itself with challenges to the epistemological status of scientific knowledge in an attempt to demonstrate its contingency, arguing in the more radical efforts that the structures of science are no more than useful fictions. This essay also includes an epistemological comparison between science and literature, but instead of making grand or meta–statements about the nature of knowing generally in the two fields, mine is a much narrower aim. My exploration entails two tasks. First, I provide a close–up look at a particular type of experiment, called the delayed–choice experiment, which clearly reveals the strangeness of the quantum world. In connection with this experiment, I discuss wave functions—mathematical expressions used by physicists to describe quantum behavior and predict the outcome of experiments involving quanta. Second, I look at Walt Whitman's “Song of Myself” focusing on the meaning of the “self” in the poem. My aim is to treat the object of study in each field as a “text” and to assert and demonstrate a parallel in the strategies of thought and response between physicists (“readers”) pondering the meaning and status of a wave function and poem readers pondering the meaning and status of the poem's self. In Whitman's “Song” we find an attempt to understand complex aspects of human experience that are said to transcend ordinary reality, an effort for which I believe there are parallels in the attempts of modern physicists to understand complex, nonintuitive aspects of the subatomic world. While not making the kind of broad claims eschewed above, I do suggest that this focused study has interesting implications since both the wave function and the poem's self force their respective sets of “readers” to confront questions of ultimacy—to consider, that is, epistemological and ontological issues of more than passing interest to students of science as well as those of metaphysics and theology.     

Some Comments on The Problem of Reductionism in Contemporary Physical Science

Is reductionism simply a methodology that has allowed science to progress to its current state (methodological reductionism), or does this methodology indicate something more, that the material universe is determined in full by its smallest components (ontological or causal reductionism)? Such questions lie at the heart of much of the contemporary religion–science dialogue. In this essay I suggest that the position articulated by philosopher–theologian Bernard Lonergan is particularly suitable for dealing with these questions. For Lonergan, the criterion of the real is simply its verified intelligibility and not its imaginability. Each of the various levels of reality, as studied in sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, and sensitive and rational psychology, consists of an intelligible integration of what on the lower level would be simply random occurrences. The things studied by the various sciences (atoms, molecules, cellular organisms, animals, human persons, and so on) are intelligible unities, and no one level is somehow more real than any other. I argue that such a scheme, while seeming somewhat counterintuitive, is best able to deal with the multilayered reality of the contemporary physical and life sciences and provide an opening to the richness of the social sciences and the achievements of human culture.     

Religion, Science, and Evolution: Paul Tillich's Fourth Way

Abstract. In his book God After Darwin John Haught provides a useful categorization of theological approaches to evolution: some theologians actively oppose Darwinian evolution, another group maintains that science and religion have nothing to say to one another, and a third seeks to engage evolution. Haught wishes to pursue the third way. But many theological attempts to talk about divine action in the world, including divine involvement in the process of evolution, run afoul of the scientific principle of the conservation of matter‐energy. Haught's reliance on the now‐familiar notion that information can have causal efficacy does not in fact escape this difficulty. I suggest a fourth approach, represented by a constructive reading of Paul Tillich's theology. The central argument is that Tillich offers a way of taking Darwinian evolution up into one's ultimate concern without claiming that God has any causal relation to evolution. God provides no historical telos for evolution, but rather a “depth teleology” that springs from the manner in which God, as the depth of the structure of finite being, is the object of Christian faith.     

Teaching Genesis: A Present-Day Approach Inspired by the Prophet Nathan

The prophets Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1–15) and John the Baptist (Mark 6:16–28) had comparable tasks before them: to convince their respective kings about the wrongs of taking somebody else's wife and marrying her. Nathan succeeded, while John failed and furthermore lost his life. What made the difference? One possible explanation is that Nathan proceeded in two steps: (1) Tell an interesting, nonthreatening story that nevertheless makes the point at issue; (2) transfer that message to the case at hand. In contrast, John used a direct approach, which raised apprehension, even fear (on the part of Herodias, the woman involved), and led to failure. That lesson has wider applications, as illustrated here for teaching the biblical Genesis narration. The other ingredient in this teaching is relational and contextual reasoning (RCR), the use of which is also indicated for other issues besides teaching Genesis.