Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction

Most of us spend a significant portion of our lives learning, practising, and performing a wide range of skills. Many of us also have a great amount of control over which skills we learn and develop. From choices as significant as career pursuits to those as minor as how we spend our weeknight leisure time, we exercise a great amount of agency over what we know and what we can do. In this paper we argue, using a framework first developed by Carbonell [2013], that in many real-world circumstances we have moral obligations to develop some skills rather than others.     

Before the rules are written: navigating moral ambiguity in performance enhancement

In 1984, a number of US cyclists used blood transfusions to boost their performance at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. The cyclists broke no rules and dominated the Games, yet were later maligned as cheaters and dopers—they had, it seemed, violated some important norm, albeit one which was neither an official rule nor otherwise easily identifiable. Their case illustrates the moral ambiguity that arises when a performance enhancement is employed in a sport that has not addressed it. This article takes up the crucial question posed by such moral ambiguity: is it ethical to enhance performance through a substance or technology when no rules exist to prohibit it? We first examine ordinary ethical obligations that athletes carry based on their status as moral agents. We conclude that such obligations provide some guidance, but cannot resolve the issue. We then examine arguments that take sport as a unique social practice that presents its own moral obligation not to use performance enhancers. We argue that these ‘spirit of sport’ arguments, developed by McNamee and Loland and Hoppeler cannot resolve the issue either. We conclude that when the rules governing sport are silent on the issue of performance enhancement the constraints on its ethical use are limited at best.     

论老年人长期照护机构安全保障义务

老年人长期照护机构安全保障义务纠纷存在法律适用偏差,部分案件以公平责任原则替代过错责任原则、合理限度不清晰、第三人侵权下机构承担责任方式和是否享有追偿权有不同认识。安全保障义务属于法定的危险防免义务。合理限度取决于对危险源的控制能力、因危险源收益大小、避免损失的成本、经营专业性、受害人特殊信赖关系及对危险规避能力等。长期照护安全保障事故诱发因素多、因果关系复杂、当事人举证能力弱、过度关怀的长期照护预期与服务有效供给不足的矛盾突出。长期照护机构应“以人为本”,提高设施环境安全性、服务队伍专业性、安全保障措施有效性。

     

Leibniz,Pufendorf, and the Possibility of Moral Self-Governance

In his On the Duties of Man and Citizen, seventeenth century natural law theorist Samuel Pufendorf argues that the source of obligation lies in ‘the command of a superior’. This so-called ‘voluntarist’ position was famously criticized by the ‘rationalist’ Gottfried Leibniz. However, I wish to highlight several neglected aspects of the debate. Leibniz implicitly proposes a solution to a central moral problem: how one can be obligated voluntarily. His answer reflects a sort of motivational internalism, whereby the ideas of justice provide some motive cause of action, and virtue provides the rest. In this way, the agent acts voluntarily by making the principles of justice the principles of her action. Secondly, I show how this argument for the principles depends implicitly on his ‘science of right’, established in his earliest writings on jurisprudence. These principles are constituent of the nature of rational substance. It then becomes clear that Leibniz had long developed a foundation for self-governance, similar to Kantian autonomy, consisting in the agent's internal moral power to act (jus) and moral necessity to act (obligation). These points are exposed through a close reading of Leibniz's criticisms of Pufendorf on the end, object and efficient cause of natural law.     

辩乎先验经验之际--康德伦理学与儒家道德哲学的一种比较阐释

康德伦理学的精髓可以表述为,由于在直觉中获得了道德本体,所以特别有助于产生最清晰的道德概念;由于借助最纯粹的先验分析把它叙述出来,所以它才成为禽兽与异化的生命无论如何都无法超越的“铁门槛”。与中国的儒家伦理学相比,康德伦理学由于是用文明时代最有力的思想武器,复活了人类在轴心时代最高形态的精神生命,因此,它无疑是人类精神哲学中最高的本体论,对于中国儒家也具有十分重要的批判性启蒙意义。     

论艾滋病人及艾滋病毒感染者权利与义务的平衡

《艾滋病防治条例》,对于艾滋病病毒感染者和艾滋病人的权利和义务进行了精巧的设计。本着保护人权和预防疾病的需要,对艾滋病病毒感染者和艾滋病人在医疗活动、人身权益和社会经济各方面的权利与义务都进行了很好的平衡。     

现实工作预览研究综述

现实工作预览是企业降低员工离职率的重要手段。文章论述了现实工作预览的现实意义、组织效能、理论作用机制、个体差异、沟通媒介以及配套策略,阐明了它与预期降低程序、决策培训的联系和区别。指出现实工作预览研究存在的问题和今后的研究方向。     

Pre-retirement anxiety: Development and validation of a measurement instrument in a Nigerian sample

Two studies were conducted to develop and provide evidence supporting the construct validity and internal consistency of scores from the Nigerian Pre-retirement Anxiety Scale (NPAS). The measure comprises three dimensions: financial preparedness, social obligation, and social alienation. In the first study, data collected from 424 civil servants supported the proposed dimensionality of scale scores and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha for the full scale = 0. 83). In the second study, data collected from a total sample of 216 employees who were also civil servants from different government agencies likewise supported the internal consistency of scores from the NPAS (Cronbach alpha for the full scale = 0.73), as well as validity. Scores from the NPAS appear to have evidence for research purposes.     

Combinations of tense and deontic modality: On the approach to temporal logic with historical necessity and conditional obligation

We consider three infinite hierarchies of what I call “two-dimensional temporal logics with explicit realization operators”, viz. (i) one without historical or deontic modalities, (ii) one with historical but without deontic modalities, and (iii) one with historical and with dyadic deontic modalities for conditional obligation and permission. Sound and complete axiomatizations are obtained for all three hierarchies relative to a simplified version of the finite co-ordinate-system semantics given for so-called T × W logic of historical necessity in [L. Åqvist, The logic of historical necessity as founded on two-dimensional modal tense logic, J. Philos. Logic 28 (1999) 329–369].     

Generalized and specific components of prejudice: The decomposition of intergroup context effects

Although different types of prejudice tend to be highly correlated, target‐specific and more generalized components can nevertheless be distinguished. Here, we analyze whether indicators of the intergroup context—threat, contact, and neighborhood composition—predict the target‐specific and/or generalized components of prejudice. Using data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N = 4629), we build a multilevel model that captures the relationship between social dominance orientation, general levels of neighborhood heterogeneity, symbolic and realistic threat and cross‐group friendship (averaged across target groups), and generalized prejudice. Our model simultaneously estimates the relationship between target‐specific levels of these intergroup context indicators and target‐specific prejudice. Results indicated that social dominance orientation remained the strongest predictor of generalized prejudice when adjusting for other variables and that indicators of the intergroup context primarily explain differences between target group ratings. Aggregate levels of cross‐group friendship also had a small effect on generalized prejudice.