Caring for Nature: From Fact to Value, from Respect to Reverence

Abstract. Despite the classical prohibition of moving from fact to value, encounter with the biodiversity and plenitude of being in evolutionary natural history moves us to respect life, even to reverence it. Darwinian accounts are value‐laden and necessary for understanding life at the same time that Darwinian theory fails to provide sufficient cause for the historically developing diversity and increasing complexity on Earth. Earth is a providing ground; matter and energy on Earth support life, but distinctive to life is information coded in the genetic molecules that superintends this matter‐energy. Life is generated and regenerated in struggle, persists in its perishing. Such life is also a gift; nature is grace. Biologists and theologians join in celebrating and conserving the genesis on Earth, awed in their encounter with this creativity that characterizes our home planet.     

论环境道德警示教育

警示教育既是环境道德教育的内容 ,也是实施环境道德教育的手段和途径 ,它有助于环境道德认识的内化、生态忧患意识的催化、环境道德观念的强化和环境道德行为的良化。警示教育必须坚持正面教育与警告提示相结合、重点警示与一般劝导相结合、法规惩治与制度引导相结合和社会警示与学校训导相结合的原则。     

疏离感研究的进展及理论构建

该文从疏离感的界定、疏离感的理论构建以及疏离感的实证研究等方面综述了国外的研究现状与近况,并从整体上进行了评述,认为以往研究主要存在几个问题:(1)疏离感的概念很多,没有一个比较全面的理论构想;(2)所有的研究都是欧美、日本文化的反映,不一定适合于中国;(3)以中学生、青少年为对象进行的研究很少;(4)很少从发展的角度来研究疏离感,因此,不能分析个人内部的发展变化过程和连续性.针对这些,我们提出了疏离感的操作性定义,并初步构建了一个二层次十维度的疏离感理论结构.     

环境思想视野中的马克思

西方环保主义者在如何评价马克思与环保思想之间的关系上之所以未成功是因为他们没能真正地理解马克思的自然概念。马克思的自然概念应包括三个层次:存在论层次、使用价值层次和价值层次。自然便是这三个层次的统一体。     

EXPERIENCING AND INTERPRETING NATURE IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract. I trace three paths from nature to religious interpretation. The first starts from religious experience in the context of nature; examples are drawn from nature poets, reflective scientists, and exponents of creation spirituality. The second,„Natural Theology”uses scientific findings concerning cosmology or evolution to develop an argument from design–or alternatively to defend evolutionary naturalism. The third,„Theology of Nature”starts from traditional religious beliefs about God and human nature and reformulates them in the light of current science. I point to examples of each of these paths in papers by other participants in this symposium, and suggest that all three paths can contribute to the task of relating science and religion today.     

AIDS-related stigma,personal risks and career objectives among makerere medical students

The aims of this study were to investigate variables that influence AIDS-related stigma and to assess occupational risks, behavioural change, and career objectives of students in face of the AIDS epidemic. Data available on 150 randomly selected medical students were analysed statistically. Results indicated that sex and year of study significantly influenced AIDS-related stigma while age, religion and tribe did not. The majority of students recommended screening and health education for high-risk people and reported high levels of perceived risk. Various occupational hazards and behavioural changes were reported, but students still wanted to remain in the medical profession. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

环境消费心理学

环境消费心理学是近年来发展起来的一个分支。生态既是人类生存的基础 ,又是人类消费的对象。人们对环境问题的认知和个人的消费行为有很大的距离。环境问题的认知是很难和实际经验相联系的抽象概念。个人即使有保护环境的意识 ,在实际消费行为中往往选择与保护环境的态度不一致的行动。这是态度、认知和行为没有一致的产生原因。本文对环境和消费问题从社会心理学的角度进行了分析。     

SIGNS AS DETERRENTS OF ILLEGAL PARKING IN SPACES DESIGNATED FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES

The percentage of illegal parking in spaces reserved for the physically disabled was monitored under three sign conditions: ground markings, ground markings plus vertical signs, and vertical signs containing a message that concerned citizens were watching the spaces. Illegal parking dropped from 69.3% of 102 vehicles during the initial ground-sign condition to 57.3% of 36 vehicles in the first vertical-sign condition. Following removal of the vertical signs, illegal parking increased to 68.7% of 43 vehicles. During the second vertical-sign condition, illegal parking dropped to 53.7% of 32 vehicles, followed by an increase to 69.5% of 68 vehicles after the vertical signs were removed. The lowest rate of illegal parking (27.1% of 78 vehicles) occurred in the vertical-sign-plus-message condition. Illegal parking subsequently increased to 34.6% (of 94 vehicles) when the message sign was removed, followed by an increase to 65.2% (of 105 vehicles) when the vertical signs were removed.     

Superimposition and withholding of edible consequences as treatment for automatically reinforced stereotypy

The delivery and subsequent withholding of tangible consequences has been previously investigated as an intervention for stereotypic behavior. The current investigation sought to extend previous research by evaluating its effectiveness and durability as treatment for stereotypy of 2 children who had been diagnosed with autism. Nonsocial functions for stereotypic behavior were identified via functional analysis. Edible items were then delivered contingent on stereotypy and were withheld in a subsequent condition. When the superimposition procedure failed to reduce stereotypy, environmental enrichment was implemented and was found to reduce the stereotypy of both participants.     

The Ethics and Politics of Religious Ethics, 1973–2023

This essay addresses the questions, “what good is religious ethics for?” and “what justification exists for the field?” in three steps. First, it canvases how religious ethicists have offered reasons for carrying out work in the field to identify an Anti-Reductive Paradigm that is guided by an Egalitarian Imperative. That imperative functions as a thin, minimal morality of inclusivity and equal respect that guides work in the field. Second, the essay considers the field's ends. Here the focus shifts from values that shape the field's methods to values that can describe the field's purposes. That shift requires us to think in terms of a thick rather than a thin morality, one with substantive rather than procedural virtues in mind. The essay offers a constructive, substantive proposal under the rubric of Critical Humanism. Critical Humanism justifies the study of religious ethics as an enterprise that can expand the moral imagination through its encounter with difference. It is shaped by four values: post-critical reasoning, social criticism, cross-cultural fluency, and environmental responsibility. Third, the essay brings the two parts of the argument together by explaining how to connect such purposes to the thin morality of inclusivity and equal respect. One upshot of the essay is to have us think not only about values, but also about power as it pertains to scholarship in the guild; hence the attention to the ethics and politics of religious ethics.