When does ‘Can’ imply ‘Ought’?

ABSTRACT

The Assistance Principle is common currency to a wide range of moral theories. Roughly, this principle states: if you can fulfil important interests, at not too high a cost, then you have a moral duty to do so. I argue that, in determining whether the ‘not too high a cost’ clause of this principle is met, we must consider three distinct costs: ‘agent-relative costs’, ‘recipient-relative costs’ and ‘ideal-relative costs’.     

重视医疗缺陷研究全面提高服务质量

随着医疗卫生事业体制改革的不断深入,全面提高服务质量成为医疗市场竞争的一种手段.结合工作实际,分析引发医疗纠纷的各种原因和因素,提出重视每一例投诉,发现问题及时解决的几点措施.通过重视医疗缺陷研究,对症下药,持续改进,逐渐达到全方位的"零缺陷"服务.     

Reasonable Partiality to Domestic Animals

The paper deals with partiality flowing from special relationships. Two main problems are discussed. The first concerns the relationship between partiality and genuine moral obligations. If partiality can bring about such obligations only if it is reasonable, what requirements should it meet in order to be reasonable? The second problem is one of animal ethics. Can the concept of reasonable partiality help us articulate what is morally at stake in a current discussion about the treatment of domestic animals, viz. the European discussion about the castration of pigs?     

论权利与义务的关系

权利与义务的关系可以归结为两种相关性。一种是一个人的权利与他人的义务的关系:一个人的权利,必然是他人的义务;反之亦然。这是一个人的权利与他人的义务的必然的、客观的、事实如何的关系,亦即所谓“权利与义务的逻辑相关性”。另一种则是基于这种逻辑相关性的“权利义务道德相关性”,亦即一个人的权利应该是对他自己的义务的交换:一个人所享有的权利应该等于他所负有的义务;而他所行使的权利则应该至多等于他所履行的义务。     

Is there a genuine tension between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities?

Samuel Scheffler has recently argued that some relationships are non-instrumentally valuable; that such relationships give rise to “underived” special responsibilities; that there is a genuine tension between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities; and that we must consequently strike a balance between the two. We argue that there is no such tension and propose an alternative approach to the relation between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities. First, while some relationships are non-instrumentally valuable, no relationship is unconditionally valuable. Second, whether such relationships give rise to special responsibilities is conditional on those relationships not violating certain moral constraints. Third, these moral constraints arise from within cosmopolitan egalitarianism itself. Thus the value of relationships and the special responsibilities to which they give rise arise within the parameters of cosmopolitan egalitarianism itself. The real tension is not between cosmopolitan equality and special responsibilities, but between special responsibilities and the various general duties that arise from the recognition, demanded by cosmopolitan egalitarianism, of a multiplicity of other basic goods. Indeed, even the recognition of special relationships itself gives rise to general duties that may condition and/or weigh against putative special responsibilities.

Generalizing Kant's Distinction between Perfect and Imperfect Duties to Trust in Different Situations

Based on previous research that violations of perfect duties cause stronger correspondent inferences than violations of imperfect ones, the authors performed four experiments to generalize this effect to trust. In Experiment 1, abstract violations of perfect duties resulted in less trust than violations of imperfect ones for specific trust scenarios. In Experiments 2 and 3, the authors experimented with different levels of abstractness of the duty violations and obtained similar effects. Experiment 4 was concerned with generalizing further—from duty violations in one situation to trust in a different situation. Although mostly consistent with the findings from Experiments 1–3, the data also demonstrated partial generalization for violations of both perfect and imperfect duties.     

A New Conventionalist Theory of Promising

Conventionalists about promising believe that it is wrong to break a promise because the promisor takes advantage of a useful social convention only to fail to do his part in maintaining it. Anti-conventionalists claim that the wrong of breaking a promise has nothing essentially to do with a social convention. Anti-conventionalists are right that the social convention is not necessary to explain the wrong of breaking most promises. But conventionalists are right that the convention plays an essential role in any satisfactory account of promising. A new conventionalism can explain this by appealing to special features of social conventions. Two of these special features have important implications for any moral requirements they mediate, such as the requirement to keep one's promises and the moral requirements attached to social or occupational roles. First, these requirements will not depend on features of a situation that are inaccessible to typical participants in the convention. Second, these requirements often cannot be tailored to fit the overly unusual circumstances of participants.     

佛教幸福感的心理学解读：基于中西比较的视角

幸福感是文化定位的,因此幸福感的研究必须本土化.佛教是影响中国人最重要的三种文化传统之一,正确理解佛教独特的对于幸福感的理解也能够进一步推动幸福感研究的本土化进程.笔者通过对佛教教义的梳理,重点阐述了佛教对幸福的认识是“苦乐圆融”.佛教“苦乐圆融观”主要从“苦受”和“乐受”两方面入手,其核心是“苦受”,关键在“圆融”.最后,通过与西方幸福感研究的比较,加深对佛教“苦乐圆融观”的理解.佛教幸福感的研究作为一个新思路,不但丰富了幸福感的研究,也为今后进一步的研究提供了一定的依据.     

Blame for constitutivists: Kantian constitutivism and the victim’s special standing to complain

Constitutivists about moral norms are often suspected of providing an overly “self-centered” account of morality which does not take seriously enough morality’s interpersonal nature. This worry seems particularly pressing in the light of recent debates about the relational character of many moral norms. In this paper, I discuss one aspect of this worry, which concerns the special standing to complain which the victims of wrongdoing have. I argue that, contrary to appearances, Kantian constitutivism can explain this latter feature, since there is a special need for remedying the denial of equal moral standing of the victim and the impairment of the victim’s agency which any wrongdoing involves.     

Exploitation and Remedial Duties

The concept of exploitation and potentially exploitative real‐world practices are the subject of increasing philosophical attention. However, while philosophers have extensively debated what exploitation is and what makes it wrong, they have said surprisingly little about what might be required to remediate it. By asking how the consequences of exploitation should be addressed, this article seeks to contribute to filling this gap. We raise two questions. First, what are the victims of exploitation owed by way of remediation? Second, who ought to remediate? Our answers to these questions are connected by the idea that exploitation cannot be fully remediated by redistributing the exploiter's gain in order to repair or compensate the victim's loss. This is because exploitation causes not only distributive but also relational harm. Therefore, redistributive measures are necessary but not sufficient for adequate remediation. Moreover, this relational focus highlights the fact that exploitative real‐world practices commonly involve agents other than the exploiter who stand to benefit from the exploitation. Insofar as these third parties are implicated in the distributive and relational harms caused by exploitation, there is, we argue, good reason to assign part of the burden of remediation to them.