WHY I AM AN ACCOMMODATIONIST AND PROUD OF IT

There is a strong need of a reasoned defense of what was known as the “independence” position of the science–religion relationship but that more recently has been denigrated as the “accommodationist” position, namely that while there are parts of religion—fundamentalist Christianity in particular—that clash with modern science, the essential parts of religion (Christianity) do not and could not clash with science. A case for this position is made on the grounds of the essentially metaphorical nature of science. Modern science functions because of its root metaphor of the machine: the world is seen in mechanical terms. As Thomas Kuhn insisted, metaphors function in part by ruling some questions outside their domain. In the case of modern science, four questions go unasked and hence unanswered: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the foundation of morality? What is mind and its relationship to matter? What is the meaning of it all? You can remain a nonreligious skeptic on these questions, but it is open for the Christian to offer his or her answers, so long as they are not scientific answers. Here then is a way that science and religion can coexist.     

Ethics,Changing Populations,and the Dental Profession

This review emphasizes the worldwide and U.S. evolving population demographics and the need for the dental profession to exercise its professional and ethical duty to expand its traditional patient base to provide needed services.     

On Luo Congyan’s Ethics

Luo Congyan put forward the idea that benevolence is the substance while righteousness is its function, which placed the intrinsic value of human beings on a more fundamental position and affirmed the unity of benevolent principle and universal norms from the perspective of the relationship between substance and function. The unity of benevolence and righteousness involves the connection between value and norms, and the latter relate to the relationship between morality and law in the broader sense. On the basis of the idea of using both benevolence and righteousness, Luo Congyan examined the relationship between morality and law. Corresponding to the emphasis on the role of both law and political power, Luo Congyan concerned himself with how to establish rational interpersonal relationships in various ways. Furthermore, Luo Congyan emphasized the significance of behavior in everyday life, while he affirmed that the universal principle should be followed. In this way, he developed the earlier Confucian thought. Translated from Studies in Ethics by Xiao Mo     

Separation of politics and morality: a commentary on Analects of Confucius

Confucians emphasizes and values morality, hence observers tended to regard moralities as politics so that the independent politics in the Confucian tradition has become implicit. Through a perusal of the Analects of Confucius, we can find that ethics and politics were separated from and independent of each other to Confucius, the primitive Confucian: he did not substitute ethics for politics. __________ Translated from Nanjing Shifan Daxue Wenxueyuan Xuebao 南京师范大学文学院学报 (Journal of School of Chinese at Nanjing Normal University) by Huang Deyuan     

池田大作的生命论伦理观——以《生命的尊严》为中心

伦理本源于社会生活,伦理的基础应当是人的生命和生活。池田大作立足于人的生命尊严来阐发幸福,倡导共生的道德风气,对生命的意义给予了新的诠释。     

《管子》论“且怀且威”及其现代启示

《管子》认为,治理国家既要采用怀柔政策,主张为政者"先之以德",通过整饬四维来形成良好的社会风尚;又强调"法不可不审",主张通过严刑峻法来树立君主的权威,赏罚严明,使人们严格遵守各项法令制度,坚持"且怀且威",礼法并重,其思想对现代社会有很好的启迪意义。     

Action Perception and Outcome Valence: Effects on Children's Inferences of Intentionality and Moral and Liking Judgments

The influences of different action-outcome scenarios on children's evaluative judgments and inferences of outcome intentionality were assessed. One hundred forty-five kindergartners, 2nd graders, and 4th graders heard 4 stories about child actors who engaged in 1 action or 3 equifinal actions and caused a positive or negative outcome. The stories made no mention of the actors' anticipated outcome so that we could assess the children's inferences of whether the actors wanted and had tried to cause the outcome. Children also rated their liking for the actors and the actors' morality. Children's moral and liking judgments were not significantly differentiated by action condition. However, actors who caused positive outcomes received favorable liking and moral judgments, and actors who caused negative outcomes received neutral liking and moral judgments. Children's intentionality inferences varied by the actors' actions and were moderated by outcome valence. The authors discuss children's apparent use of the valence rule when inferring intentionality and their reluctance to judge harshly actors who cause negative outcomes when not privy to the actors' intentions.     

Error Theory and the Concept of Morality

Error theories about morality often take as their starting point the supposed queerness of morality, and those resisting these arguments often try to argue by analogy that morality is no more queer than other unproblematic subject matters. Here, error theory (as exemplified primarily by the work of Richard Joyce) is resisted first by arguing that it assumes a common, modern, and peculiarly social conception of morality. Then error theorists point out that the social nature of morality requires one to act against one's self‐interest while insisting on the categorical, inescapable, or overriding status of moral considerations: they argue that morality requires magic, then (rightly) claim that there is no such thing as magic. An alternate eudaimonist conception of morality is introduced which itself has an older provenance than the social point of view, dating to the ancient Greeks. Eudaimonism answers to the normative requirements of morality, yet does not require magic. Thus, the initial motivation for error theory is removed.