公共行政伦理价值定位与规范体系

加强公共行政伦理建设,是加强政风建设、建设廉洁勤政务实高故政府、建设高素质公务员队伍的基本途径。因此,必须对公共行政伦理进行价值定位,借鉴国外公共行政伦理建设的经验,建构中国当代公共行政伦理的规范体系。     

关于克隆人试验与伦理学的三原则

由于克隆人试验的对象是人的活细胞,不是人的胚胎;并且由于人只能有限地决定自己的未来,根本无法决定自己的出生;同时由于基因诊断和修复有助于新生儿的健康,因而克隆人试验既不会伤害任何人的生命体,也不会侵犯任何可能出现的克隆人的自主权和平等权,进而不会违反伦理学的三原则。     

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。     

Science and Religion: Getting Ready for the Future

I explore three challenges for the current dialogue between science and religion: the challenges from hermeneutics, feminisms, and postmodernisms. Hermeneutics, defined as the practice and theory of interpretation and understanding, not only deals with questions of interpreting texts and data but also examines the role and use of language in religion and in science, but it should not stop there. Results of the post‐Kuhnian discussion are used to exemplify a wider range of hermeneutical issues, such as the ideological potential of scientific concepts, the dynamics of interdisciplinarity, and the significance of the socioeconomic situatedness of science and religion. Feminist research analyzes the consequences of the interplay of masculine, feminine, and gender typologies in religion and science. Examples from the history of science as well as current scientific conceptualizations indicate that beliefs in the inferiority of woman form part of our inherited scientific, religious, and metaphysical framework. It is argued that postmodernism in its most constructive form shares the best fruits of modernity, especially of the Enlightenment, while avoiding some of its most serious mistakes. In conclusion, reflecting on the three publics engaged in the dialogue between science and religion—academe, religious communities, and societies—I offer constructive suggestions and critical observations concerning the future of this dialogue.     

Reasonable reasons for waiting

Recent decision‐making research claims to establish that, in violation of Savage's normative sure‐thing principle, individuals often wait to acquire noninstrumental information and subsequently base their decisions upon this information. The current research suggests that characterizing individuals as pursuing noninstrumental or useless information may be overstated. Through a series of experiments we establish, first, that many people choose to wait, even when waiting provides no additional information at all. Second, the longer people are allowed to wait before having to decide, the more people prefer to wait rather than decide immediately. Third, those individuals who choose to wait are the ones less confident about committing themselves to a decision. For them, the benefit from waiting may be especially valuable by allowing them to come to terms with a less‐than‐ideal decision. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Erna and Melanie Klein

Erna was one of the child patients treated by Melanie Klein in Berlin, employing her recently discovered play technique. Since Erna died in Chile, the authors considered the IPA Congress in Santiago an opportunity to present a paper as a homage both to Erna and, especially, to Klein. She learned much from that very disturbed child, which she later used to sustain the ongoing development of her theories. The paper explores biographic data relevant to understanding both the case and the theories. It analyses the case material to follow Klein in the discovery and the handling of the child's transference and the harsh expressions of hate, jealousy and envy, which are brought in, with sad consequences, by strong persecutory feelings. Klein's comparison of this case with that of Freud's Wolf-man is also considered, mostly to show that the similarities were less than originally claimed, and that Klein, perhaps, was introducing a theoretic shift which led her technique to gradually change from ' Nachträglichkeit ' to the 'signification-resignification' pair, akin to Strachey's concept of the mutative interpretation. Lastly, the comprehension of Erna's strong psychotic traits and the links with later developments of the theory on psychosis are studied.     

Languages for Gestalts of line patterns

Any formal model of visual Gestalt perception requires a language for representing possible perceptual structures of visual stimuli, as well as a decision criterion that selects the actually perceived structure of a stimulus among its possible alternatives. This paper discusses an existing model of visual Gestalt perception that is based on Structural Information Theory. We investigate two factors that determine the representational power of this model: the domain of visual stimuli that can be analyzed, and the class of perceptual structures that can be generated for these stimuli. We show that the representational power of the existing model of Structural Information Theory is limited, and that some of the generated structures are perceptually inadequate. We argue that these limitations do not imply the implausibility of the underlying ideas of Structural Information Theory and introduce alternative models based on the same ideas. For each of these models, the domain of visual stimuli that can be analyzed properly is formally defined. We show that the models are conservative modifications of the original model of Structural Information Theory: for cases that are adequately analyzed in the original model of Structural Information Theory, they yield the same results.     

Francis Collins,the Skeptics,and Evidence for God

Skeptical Inquirer magazine has published an attempted refutation of Francis Collins' book, The Language of God. The refutation argues that Collins lacks scientific evidence for God and that Collins actually appeals not to evidence, but to personal belief. In refutation of this refutation, Ted Peters argues that Collins plays completely within the rules of scientific discourse while providing rational evidence—though not conclusive proof—for the existence of God as creator and moral lawgiver.     

Depth capture by generic-view motion

The present study investigated the spatial interaction between the generic view and accidental view. First, the generic-view principle was applied to the three-dimensional motion of a wire-frame cube. Second, the effects of inner rotating dots and generic/accidental views of inner bars on an accidental view of a cube were investigated to show the spatial interaction between generic and accidental views. This investigation revealed that the generic view of a rotating cube generated a clearer three-dimensional perception than the accidental view, which is consistent with the generic-view principle. Both the unambiguous three-dimensional cue of inner dots and the generic view of inner bars "captured" the depth perception of the accidental view of the rotating cube. This finding suggests that the generic-view principle not only works locally, but then propagates globally. Further, it indicates how the visual system implements the generic-view principle to incorporate more complicated scenes.     

关于道德原则的几点思考

信仰缺失、经济转型和文化变革,使信仰和道德从一元化走向了多元化,并引起了人们对道德的迷茫、沉思和渴求。在追求普遍适用道德原则的过程中,绝对主义把这种原则看成亘古不变的教条,而相对主义则否定这种原则的存在。我们认为,这种原则是存在的。它是绝对性与相对性的统一,是客观性与主观性的统一,是人们对历史必须性的一种表述形式。我们必须认真研究客观规律,才能总结出有价值的道德原则、范畴和规范。