Chapter 14: The Caleb Affect: The Oldest-Old in Church and Society

SUMMARY

Persons in North America who are over 80 years of age are generally overlooked by religious leaders. They are, however, the fastest growing cohort in society. This age crescendo promises to be a significant factor in the future ministry of the rapidly increasing number of graying churches and synagogues.     

胚胎期可卡因、吗啡暴露影响子代成瘾相关行为的神经发育机制

孕期使用毒品可影响胎儿大脑的正常发育,导致脑内神经递质系统异常以及行为的改变.近年来不断有研究证据提示,胚胎期接触可卡因、吗啡等成瘾药物,可以影响神经细胞的增殖、迁移或凋亡等发育过程,使中脑皮层边缘系统中多巴胺、GABA、谷氨酸等神经元形态、受体功能以及突触可塑性发生改变,从而导致子代的学习记忆和成瘾易感性等行为异常.本文将从行为、神经发育、递质系统以及脑功能等层面归纳胚胎期用药对成瘾相关行为影响机制的重要研究进展,并试图提出可能的研究展望.     

全球卫生治理视域下实现全球卫生伦理的人权路径

全球卫生挑战已发生巨大变化,从传染病的持久危害到非传染性疾病和精神疾患日益增长的威胁,全球卫生治理已逐渐扩展到人权、减灾、环境等健康决定因素的治理。全球卫生伦理是全球卫生治理的价值要素,指向了所有全球卫生行动的终极目标与意义。人权是实现全球卫生伦理的路径之一,正逐渐成为全球卫生治理的有力工具。梳理了全球卫生伦理的概念和发展、总结了健康与人权领域的治理工具,并以联合国和世界卫生组织为例分析了人权参与实现全球卫生伦理的演进路径,以期为加深理解人权理念在全球卫生治理的政策、规划和实践提供参考。

     

病原生物信息跨国共享的伦理困境及解决措施

面对大流行风险,完善病原生物信息的国际共享是维护全球卫生安全、促进卫生发展、完善卫生伦理规则的基础性议题领域,也是推进全球卫生治理制度化建设的合作基石。详细地梳理了目前病原生物信息跨国共享机制的主要运行模式,分析了该机制存在的共享技术鸿沟、共享收益失衡、共享规则模糊、共享观念分裂等方面的伦理困境,并从聚合卫生技术资源、融合卫生治理协调机制、完善惠益分享制度规则、整合治理观念等方面提出了破解这些伦理困境的路径选择。

     

Epistemological and Moral Conflict Between Religion and Science

Debates about religion and educational attainment often assume that members of certain religious groups do not seek out knowledge of science because they are opposed to the use of the scientific method. Using the science module of the 2006 General Social Survey, the analysis indicates that no religious group differs from the nonreligious comparison group in its propensity to seek out scientific knowledge. A more subtle epistemological conflict may arise when scientists make claims that explicitly contradict theological accounts. Findings indicate that Protestants and Catholics differ from the comparison group only on the very few issues where religion and science make competing claims. A third possible source of conflict may not be epistemological, but rather derives from opposition to what is understood as the public moral agenda of scientists. Findings indicate that conservative Protestants are opposed to scientific influence in public affairs due to opposition to the scientists’ moral agenda.     

Autarky as a moral baseline

In his account of fairness in international trade, Aaron James distinguishes autarkic gains from the gains of trade. Since the autarkic gains are external to the practice of trade, James's account allows each country to keep these gains. The gains of trade, in contrast, must be distributed equally. This distinction suffers from three problems. First, James's autarkic adjustment not only allows inequalities to persist, but exacerbates and creates new ones. Second, there is no non-morally arbitrary way to determine the autarkic gains. Finally, by favouring his account over more egalitarian options, James does not merely set autarkic gains aside as external to the practice of trade but rather implicitly endorses a moral entitlement to autarkic gains without argumentation.     

Reply to critics

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.