Shedding Dialectical Tiers: A Social-Epistemic View

Is there a duty to respond to objections in order to present a good argument? Ralph Johnson argues that there is such a duty, which he refers to as the “dialectical tier“ of an argument. I deny the (alleged) duty primarily on grounds that it would exert too great a demand on arguers, harming argumentation practices. The valuable aim of responding to objections, which Johnson 's dialectical tier is meant to satisfy, can be achieved in better ways, as argumentation is a social-epistemic activity.     

罗尔斯“分配的正义观”与诺齐克“持有的正义观”对照研究

分配正当性的根据是什么 ?人的基本权利与平等的要件如何分配才是符合正义的 ?罗尔斯和诺齐克从两个向度上对此作了深入研究。罗尔斯从平等的权利出发 ,主张用“公平正义的两个原则”来取代功利主义 ,认为除非有充足理由证明应当不平等 ,否则就应当平等。并要求依据“公平的正义原则”分配公共资源和自由体系 ;诺齐克从人的不可剥夺的权利出发 ,认为除非有充足理由证明应当平等 ,否则就应当不平等 ,通过“资格”理论确立“持有”的正当性。在功利主义、财产权、国家的作用、自由平等、分配模式和社会稳定的意义等方面 ,罗尔斯与诺齐克的观点也各有契合与对立。     

Genomic Databases as Global Public Goods?

Recent discussions of genomics and international justice have adopted the concept of 'global public goods' to support both the view of genomics as a benefit and the sharing of genomics knowledge across nations. Such discussion relies on a particular interpretation of the global public goods argument, facilitated by the ambiguity of the concept itself. Our aim in this article is to demonstrate this by a close examination of the concept of global public goods with particular reference to its use in the context of genomic databases. We content that the argument for construing genomics as a global public good depends on seeing it as a natural good by focusing on features intrinsic to genomics knowledge. We shall argue that social and political arrangements are relevant and that recognising this opens the door to construing the use of global public goods language as a strategic one.     

Immigration

It is not a fundamental human right to live wherever one would most like to be. We have to ask when a state should admit people not its citizens wishing to enter and settle within its territory. To exclude someone from entry to a country where he wishes to settle infringes his liberty. When anybody's liberty is infringed or curtailed the onus of proof lies upon those who claim a right to infringe or curtail it, other things being equal. This paper argues that there are two reasonable grounds for refusing entry to would-be immigrants. First, in order to avoid genuine overpopulation; and second, to protect vulnerable cultures being submerged by large numbers of people of a more robust culture. Neither of these restrictions applies in the case of Britain and the paper concludes by demanding an immediate liberalisation of immigration laws and immediate public recognition by government of the benefits of immigration and determined discouragement of xenophobic propaganda against it. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Environmental Refugees: What Rights? Which Duties?

It is estimated that there could be 200 million‘environmental refugees’ by the middle of this century. One major environmental cause of population displacement is likely to be global climate change. As the situation is likely to become more pressing, it is vital to consider now the rights of environmental refugees and the duties of the rest of the world. However, this is not an issue that has been addressed in mainstream theories of global justice. This paper considers the potential of two leading liberal theories of international justice to address the particular issues raised by the plight of potential and actual environmental refugees. I argue that neither John Rawls’s ‘Law of Peoples’ approach nor Charles Beitz’s `cosmopolitanism' is capable of providing an adequate account of justice in this context. Beitz’s theory does have some advantages over Rawls’s approach but it fails to take proper account of the attachment that some people have to their own ‘home’. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences

Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one's preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.     

柳宗元对《管子》四维论的解读

把礼、义、廉、耻视为国之四维,提出“四维不张,国乃灭亡”治道思想的是《管子》。历代学者对其持肯定态度,但柳宗元却是例外。他以《管子》释义四维有误、“廉与耻,义之小节”“不得与义抗而为维”为由,论证四维论的提法不确切,进而得出“四维者非管子之言”的结论。实际上,这是一种教条主义的学究式裁断。     

Proof theory and mathematical meaning of paraconsistent C-systems

A proof-theoretic analysis and new arithmetical semantics are proposed for some paraconsistent C-systems, which are a relevant sub-class of Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs) introduced by W.A. Carnielli et al. (2002, 2005) [8] and [9]. The sequent versions BC, CI, CIL of the systems bC, Ci, Cil presented in Carnielli et al. (2002, 2005) [8] and [9] are introduced and examined. BC, CI, CIL admit the cut-elimination property and, in general, a weakened sub-formula property. Moreover, a formal notion of constructive paraconsistent system is given, and the constructivity of CI is proven. Further possible developments of proof theory and provability logic of CI-based arithmetical systems are sketched, and a possible weakened Hilbert?s program is discussed. As to the semantical aspects, arithmetical semantics interprets C-system formulas into Provability Logic sentences of classical Arithmetic PA (Artemov and Beklemishev (2004) [2], Japaridze and de Jongh (1998) [19], Gentilini (1999) [15], Smorynski (1991) [22]): thus, it links the notion of truth to the notion of provability inside a classical environment. It makes true infinitely many contradictions B∧¬B and falsifies many arbitrarily complex instances of non-contradiction principle ¬(A∧¬A). Moreover, arithmetical models falsify both classical logic LK and intuitionistic logic LJ, so that a kind of metalogical completeness property of LFI-paraconsistent logic w.r.t. arithmetical semantics is proven. As a work in progress, the possibility to interpret CI-based paraconsistent Arithmetic PACI into Provability Logic of classical Arithmetic PA is discussed, showing the role that PACIarithmetical models could have in establishing new meta-mathematical properties, e.g. in breaking classical equivalences between consistency statements and reflection principles.     

国民公正观的结构

对429名被调查者的研究发现,最为公众赞同的公正观依次为:(1)公正体现在法律面前人人平等;(2)公正体现为人们在求学、就业、投资、参政等方面的机会平等;(3)公正体现在程序公平合理。因素分析表明,国民的公正观是多元的,可分为6个维度,分别为权利、衡平、救济、报应、平等、平均。聚类分析的结果表明,公正内隐观的6个维度最终可聚为"均等"和"对等"2类。     

组织公正研究:回顾与展望

文章主要回顾了组织公正40多年来的研究成果与进展,包括组织公正的概念和理论发展。并从组织公正概念的整合、机会公正、第三方公正、群体公正、跨文化研究、方法论等几个方面提出了进一步研究的思考和展望。