Freedom,Love, and Justice

This article starts from love as being a fundamental value, guiding modes of behaviour that establish a reliable framework and basis for the recognition of the rights and dignity of everyone in the community. The affirmation of justice and freedom based on love leads to corrective and transformative action in cases where life is threatened and rights are being violated. Drawing on the experience and witness of Martin Luther King Jr, the article underlines that love empowers the oppressed to stand up and becomes a moral imperative for change, against the background of the many forces promoting conflict and violence, division, and polarization. The power of love is a message to the world, to the powerful, and to the powerless – to all who long for a different reality from what we see in today’s world. This needs to be expressed in the quest for the unity of the church and the unity of humankind, serving the sustainability and unity of God’s creation.     

组织公正感研究进展

章先介绍了公正及公正感的概念,进而分析了组织公正感的概念。国外组织公正感的研究可分成3个阶段,首先由Adams提出分配公平,之后Thibaut、Leventhal等提出程序公正,最后Bies等提出相互作用公正。尽管国外对组织公正感研究比较广泛,但对公正感的结构及测量方法还存在分歧,有单因素理论、双因素理论、三因素理论和四因素理论。     

SARS反思:我国卫生资源宏观分配中存在的几个问题

此次应对SARS的历程昭示我们,我国卫生资源宏观分配存在严重问题。主要表现在：政府卫生总投入严重不足;政府卫生资源在治疗和预防之间的再分配不合理;政府卫生资源的城乡分布极不均衡。我国应该从这次对抗SARS的战役中吸取教训,努力改变这种不合理的局面,提高我国应对各种疾病特别是各种传染病的能力,增进我国人民特剐是农民的健康水平。     

The role of oxytocin in early mother-infant interactions: Variations in maternal affect attunement

The aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin and maternal affect attunement, as well as the role of affect attunement in the relationship between oxytocin and infant social engagement during early mother-infant interactions. Forty-three mother-infant dyads participated in the present study when infants were 4 months. They were observed during (1) a situation where no communication took place and (2) a natural interaction between mother and infant. During this procedure, three saliva samples from mothers and their infants were collected to determine their levels of oxytocin at different time points. Maternal affect attunement (maintaining attention, warm sensitivity) and infant interactive behaviors (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Results indicated that overall maternal oxytocin functioning was negatively related to her warm sensitivity, while infant oxytocin reactivity together with maternal affect attunement were associated with infant positive social engagement with their mothers. Specifically, infant oxytocin reactivity was significantly related to their gazes at mother, but only for infants of highly attuned mothers. These results point to the complex role oxytocin plays in parent-infant interactions while emphasizing the need to analyze both overall oxytocin functioning as well as reactivity as different indices of human affiliative behavior.     

The relevance of Rawls' principle of justice for research on cognitively impaired patients

An ethical conflict arises when we must performresearch in the interest of future patients,but that this may occasionally injure theinterests of today's patients.In the case of cognitively impaired persons, thequestion arises whether it is compatible withhumane healthcare not only to treat, but alsoto use these patients for research purposes.Some bioethicists and theologians haveformulated a general duty of solidarity, alsopertaining to cognitively impaired persons, as ajustification for research on these persons. Ifone examines this thesis from the theory ofjustice according to John Rawls, it is revealedthat such a duty of solidarity cannotnecessarily be extrapolated from Rawls'conception of justice. This is at least true ofRawls' difference principle, because accordingto the difference principle only those measuresare justifiable which serve the interest of therespective least well off. Those measures whichwould engender additional injury for the leastwell off could not be balanced by any utilityaccording to Rawls.However, John Rawls' difference principleis subordinate to the first principle,which is that each person has an equalright to the most extensive basic libertycompatible with the same liberty for others.These primary goods are determined by thefreedom and integrity of the person.This integrity of decisionally impaired personswould be in danger if one would abstain fromresearch and thus forego the increase inknowledge related to their disease. Thus onecould conclude, at least from Rawls' firstprinciple, that society must take on a duty toguarantee the degrees of freedom forcognitively impaired persons and thus alsosupport the efforts for their healing.     

Ethical Issues in Gestational Surrogacy

The introduction of contraceptive technologies hasresulted in the separation of sex and procreation. Theintroduction of new reproductive technologies (mainlyIVF and embryo transfer) has led not only to theseparation of procreation and sex, but also to there-definition of the terms mother and family.For the purpose of this essay, I will distinguishbetween:1. the genetic mother – the donor of the egg;2. the gestational mother – she who bears and gives birth to the baby;3. the social mother – the woman who raises the child.This essay will deal only with the form of gestationalsurrogacy in which the genetic parents intend to bethe social parents, and the surrogate mother has nogenetic relationship to the child she bears anddelivers. I will raise questions regarding medicalethical aspects of surrogacy and the obligation(s) ofthe physician(s) to the parties involved. I will arguethat the gestational surrogate is “a womb to rent,”that there is great similarity between gestationalcommercial surrogacy and organ transplant marketing.Furthermore, despite claims to freedom of choice andfree marketing, I will claim that gestationalsurrogacy is a form of prostitution and slavery,exploitation of the poor and needy by those who arebetter off. The right to be a parent, although notconstitutional, is intuitive and deeply rooted.However, the issue remains whether this rightoverrules all other rights, and at what price to theparties involved. I will finally raise the followingprovocative question to society: In the interim periodbetween today's limited technology and tomorrow'sextra-corporeal gestation technology (ectogenesis),should utilizing females in PVS (persistent vehetativestate) for gestational surrogacy be sociallyacceptable/permissible – provided they have leftpermission in writing?     

Dualism and its Importance for Medicine

Cartesian dualism has been viewed by medical theorists to be oneof the chief causes of a reductionist/mechanistic treatment ofthe patient. Although I aver that Cartesian dualism is one culprit for the misapprehension of the genuine treatment of patients in termsof both mind and body, I argue that interactive dualism whichstresses the interaction of mind and body is essential to treatpatients with dignity and compassion. Thus, adequate medical carethat is humanistic in nature is difficult (if not impossible)to achieve without physicians adhering to a dualistic frameworkin which the body and person is treated during illness.     

Liberalism and the Privatised Family: The Legacy of Rousseau

This article argues that the intellectual legacy of Rousseau is at the root of the failure of 20th century egalitarian theorists such as Rawls and Dworkin to engage intellectually with feminist theorists working within the liberal tradition. Through an extended critique of Rousseau’s delineation of the relationship between liberal citizenship and the private family, it argues that the failure of such liberal theorists to take gender hierarchy seriously is a consequence of their attempt to place the private family outside the sphere not only of politics, but also of justice.     

The Duty to Eradicate Global Poverty: Positive or Negative?

In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can at little cost to themselves, but because of their having violated a principle of justice not to unduly harm others by imposing on them a coercive global order that makes their access to the objects of their human right to subsistence insecure. In this paper, I claim that although Pogge is right in arguing that negative duties are crucial in an account of global justice, he is wrong in saying that they are the only ones that are crucial. Harming the global poor by causing their poverty provides a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the global rich to have a duty of justice to assist them. After engaging in a critical analysis of Pogges argument, I conclude by suggesting the need for a robust conception of cosmopolitan solidarity that includes positive duties of assistance which are not mere duties of charity, but enforceable ones of justice.     

Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World

This article argues that there is no sound basis for thinking that we have a general and strong duty to rectify disparities of wealth around the world, apart from the special case where some become wealthy by theft or fraud. The nearest thing we have to a rational morality for all has to be built on the interests of all, and they include substantial freedoms, but not substantial entitlements to others assistance. It is also pointed out that the situation of the worlds poor is not that of victims of disasters, but simply of less-developed technology, which can be repaired by full and free trade relations with others. The true savior of the worlds poor is the businessman, not the missionary. What we do need to do is strike down barriers to commerce, rather than requisition aid.