转基因食品与人类健康初探

随着转基因食品不断地进入市场,学者和公众对转基因食品是否危害人类健康展开了激烈的争论。介绍转基因食品安全性评价的科学指标,运用伦理学的基本原则对两种观点进行了分析,并提出对转基因食品采取“有罪推定”的战略。     

古代风水辨

“风水”是一种传统文化,是人们对居住环境进行理性选择的行为规范,体现着一种哲学意义上的精神追求。作为一门古老的环境文化,它源于先民对自然的敬畏和对美好生活的向望,虽然由于历史条件的限制,其中不乏一些迷信的成分,但就整体而言,古代风水文化更多的是倡导人与自然的和谐相处     

Rethinking Accountability in the Context of Human Rights

Within liberal democratic theory, ‘democratic accountability’ denotes an aggregative method for linking political decisions to citizens’ preferences through representative institutions. Could such a notion be transferred to the global context of human rights? Various obstacles seem to block such a transfer: there are no ‘world citizens’ as such; many people in need of human rights are not citizens of constitutional democratic states; and the aggregative methods that are supposed to sustain the link are often used in favour of nation-state strategic action rather than human rights. So what could accountability mean in relation to human rights? This article argues that discourse theory offers resources for approaching these problems and for rethinking a normative notion of accountability in relation to human rights. It is suggested that accountability should link political decisions to universal agreements through global rights institutions and that the link should be sustained by deliberative rather than aggregative procedures.     

我国人体器官移植的社会支持系统研究

供体来源不足严重制约了我国器官移植事业的发展。有鉴于此,建立一个非技术的人体器官移植的社会支持系统对促进我国器官移植事业的发展将具有重要意义。通过对该系统各组成部分如法律法规系统、组织管理系统、宣传教育系统、补偿系统的研究,旨在对我国器官移植事业的发展有所裨益。     

阴阳神化与继善成性——宋明儒对《系辞·上传》第五章第一节的阐释

《系辞·上传》第五章是《易传》中最重要的一章,而其释义适巧又未有定论。之所以未有定论,在于其丰富解读的可能性。本文取宋明儒对此章第一节的疏解,分为不相统属的三系五说。综括而言,如本章由阴阳变化之动力论"道",特殊处在于:既直接就天道论述,但又从切近可持的"阴、阳"势能为论述点,则其论述法可划归于"即用显体"的方式。《系辞》之所谓"善",或由阴阳变化之生生不已立论,或由人之自觉地承继天道处言善。所谓"性",则或从万物所受命于阴阳而成其具体生命处说;或由万物之既成之后,复归于天道处说;或由人(或万物)之自成乃因天道之赋性处说。本文既分别展示此节蕴义的丰富,且见此章可为《易传》形上学性格之标示,也表现宋明儒者间诠释立场的差异。     

Human rights and applied psychology

Applied and community psychology necessarily involves the consideration of human rights issues. The problems experienced by many of the clients of applied psychologists result from human rights abuses, the provisions of the Human Rights Act (1998) relate to the everyday practice of applied and community psychologists, and psychologists have a distinctive perspective on human rights. For psychologists, human rights reflect formalized systems for ensuring that people's basic needs are satisfied. Declarations of human rights and legal provisions therefore represent, for psychologists, codifications of how we collectively understand our relationships and social obligations. It is therefore argued that psychologists should positively advocate for the application of psychological science to these issues. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

命与天命:儒家天人关系的双重视角

As a pair of important categories in traditional Chinese culture, “ming 命 (destiny or decrees)” and “tian ming 天命 (heavenly ordinances)” mainly refer to the constraints placed on human beings. Both originated from “ling 令 (decrees),” which evolved from “wang ling 王令 (royal decrees)” into “tian ling 天令 (heavenly decrees),” and then became “ming” from a throne because of the decisive role of “heavenly decrees” over a throne. “Ming” and “tian ming” have different definitions: “Ming” represented the limits Heaven placed on the natural lives of human beings and was an objective force that men could not direct, but was embodied in human beings as their “destiny”; “Tian ming” reflected the moral ideals of human beings in their self-identification; It originated in man but had to be verified by Heaven, and it was therefore the true ordinance that Heaven placed on human beings. “Ming” and “tian ming” are two perspectives on the traditional relationship between Heaven and human beings, and at the same time Confucians and Daoists placed different emphasis on them. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Zhongguo zhexueshi 中国哲学史 (History of Chinese Philosophy), 2007, (4): 11–21     

OUR COMMON ENEMY: COMBATTING THE WORLD'S DEADLIEST VIRUSES TO ENSURE EQUITY HEALTH CARE IN DEVELOPING NATIONS

In a previous issue of Zygon (Carvalho 2007), I explored the role of scientists—especially those engaging the science-religion dialogue—within the arena of global equity health, world poverty, and human rights. I contended that experimental biologists, who might have reduced agency because of their professional workload or lack of individual resources, can still unite into collective forces with other scientists as well as human rights organizations, medical doctors, and political and civic leaders to foster progressive change in our world. In this article, I present some recent findings from research on three emerging viruses—HIV, dengue, and rotavirus—to explore the factors that lead to the geographical expansion of these viruses and the increase in frequency of the infectious diseases they cause. I show how these viruses are generating problems for geopolitical stability, human rights, and equity health care for developing nations that are already experiencing a growing poverty crisis. I suggest some avenues of future research for the scientific community for the movement toward resolution of these problems and indicate where the science-religion field can be of additional aid.     

THREE THEORIES OF HUMAN NATURE

In The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker maintains that at present there are three competing views of human nature—a Christian theory, a “blank slate” theory (what I call a social constructivist theory), and a Darwinian theory—and that the last of these will triumph in the end. I argue that neither the outcome of such competition nor the particular content of these theories is as clear as Pinker believes. In this essay I take a critical as well as a constructive look at the challenge presented by a Darwinian theory of human nature—a challenge to the social sciences and the humanities and also to theology and more specifically to a Christian understanding of human nature.     

MORAL APES, HUMAN UNIQUENESS, AND THE IMAGE OF GOD

Recent advances in evolutionary biology and ethology suggest that humans are not the only species capable of empathy and possibly morality. These findings are of no little consequence for theology, given that a nonhuman animal as a free moral agent would beg the question if human beings are indeed uniquely created in God's image. I argue that apes and some other mammals have moral agency and that a traditional interpretation of the imago Dei is incorrectly equating specialness with exclusivity. By framing the problem in terms of metaphor, following the work of Paul Ricoeur and Sallie McFague, I propose that the concept of the imago Dei could be extended to accommodate moral species other than our own.