The principle of liberty and legal representation of posterity

This paper considers a guardianship model for the legal representation of future generations. According to this model, national and international courts should be given the competence to appoint guardians for future generations, if agents who care about the welfare of posterity apply for the creation of a guardianship in relation to a dispute that can be resolved by the application of law. This reform would grant guardians of future people legal standing or locus standi before courts, that is, the right to bring an action before a court of law for adjudication. Although the guardianship model faces several difficult theoretical and practical problems pertaining to the representation of different near and distant future generations, it is argued that this model – and certain other legal norms intended to protect future basic needs – can be justified on the basis of the principle of liberty.     

Is Mozi a utilitarian philosopher?

In this essay I argue that Mozi’s philosophy is anything but utilitarianism by way of analysing four ethical theories. Utilitarianism is an ethics in which the moral subject is an atomic individual human being, and its concern is how to fulfill the interests of the individual self and the social majority. Confucian ethics is centered on the notion of the family and its basic question is that of priority in the relationship between the small self and the enlarged or collective self. Opposite to these two moral theories is Mozi’s ethics: The interests that Mozi is primarily concerned with are not the interests of my individual self or my collective self, but the interests of the other. The fulfillment of the material needs of the other is my moral obligation. The arguments are centered on the three basic concepts, “the I,” “the we,” and “the other.” The significance of Mozi’s thought in modern or postmodern context lies in its striking resemblance to the philosophy of a contemporary western philosopher, Levinas. In both Mozi and Levinas, there is a suspension of utilitarianism. __________ Translated from Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 (History of Chinese Philosophy), 2005 (1)     

易学视域下的象山心学

象山心学有着深层易学根基之支撑。基于易学的天人之学,他敞开了以大中至正之道、之理为根基根据的整体宇宙图景。认为人的本心存在的敞开着宇宙大千世界中的一切。《易》的"穷理尽性以至于命"的价值期许,遂具体落实为人人之开显对于本心的高度明觉,挺立个我生命的主体性,积极构建基于此心的属于自己的意义的世界。     

Dominance violations in judged prices of two- and three-outcome gambles

The dominance principle states that one should prefer the option with consequences that are at least as good as those of other options for any state of the world. When applied to judged prices of gambles, the dominance principle requires that increasing one or more outcomes of a gamble should increase the judged price of the gamble, with everything else held constant. Previous research has uncovered systematic violations of the dominance principle: people assign higher prices to a gamble with a large probability of winning an amount, Y, otherwise zero, than they do to a superior gamble with the same chance of winning Y, otherwise winning a small amount, X! These violations can be explained by a configural-weight theory in which two-outcome gambles are represented with two sets of decision weights; one set for outcomes having values of zero and another set for lower-valued outcomes that have nonzero values. The present paper investigates whether dominance violations are limited to two-outcome gambles. Results show that people violate the dominance principle with three-outcome gambles even with financial incentives. Furthermore, results could be predicted from the configural-weight theory. The data do not support the view that configural weighting is caused by a shift in strategy that would apply only to two-outcome gambles.     

Zur Rekonstruktion der Philosophischen Hermeneutik

Towards a reconstruction of philosophical hermeneutics. Following Nietzsche, Heidegger and, on the other hand, Cassirer and Wittgenstein, a philosophy of interpretation, i.e. a relativism of world-views, is at present increasing in continental as well as in analytical philosophy. From the basis of a critical fallibilism the shortcomings of the new epistemological antirealism are pointed out in general, and, hence, consequences are drawn for the more specialized case of metahermeneutics (hermeneutics being defined as a sort of pragmatical semiotics). A combination of realistic and antirealistic elements is recommended as unevitable. According to this, firstly, the key-concepts of hermeneutics must be differentiated, and, secondly, a fundamental set of criteria can be established that bridges the gap between metahermeneutics and hermeneutical practice.

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Der Artikel führt den überwiegend kritisch gerichteten Beitrag Thesen zur Philosophischen Hermeneutik, Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 1993/1, 173–188 nach der konstruktiven und systematischen Seite hin weiter.     

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’.     

多媒体学习中线索原则是否存在经验逆转效应?——来自两项元分析的证据

经验逆转效应指出,对低先备知识者学习有积极作用的教学设计可能对高先备知识者无效,甚至有消极影响。本研究分别对高、低先备知识者进行关于线索对其学习过程中主观认知负荷及学习结果影响的元分析,检验线索原则是否存在经验逆转效应及认知负荷理论能否解释线索原则的经验逆转效应。结果表明,线索能降低低先备知识者学习过程中的主观认知负荷并促进其学习表现;但线索对高先备知识者认知负荷及学习成绩的总效应均不显著。结合元分析结果,本研究证明了在多媒体学习环境下线索原则存在部分经验逆转,且部分支持了线索原则经验逆转效应的认知负荷理论解释。     

WILLIAM WHEWELL,THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS,AND THE MODERN SOLAR SYSTEM

Astronomers of the first half of the nineteenth century viewed our solar system entirely differently from the way twentieth‐century astronomers viewed it. In the earlier period the dominant image was of a set of planets and moons, both of which kinds of bodies were inhabited by intelligent beings comparable to humans. By the early twentieth century, science had driven these beings from every planet in our system except the Earth, leaving our solar system (and perhaps others) as more or less desolate regions for the most part bereft of intelligent life. This essay traces this extinction and its relation to religious thought, noting the role played in it by Sir John Herschel and especially by William Whewell. The inverse square laws for gravitation, heat radiation, and light receive special attention, as does the question of the relevance of the Christian notions of a divine incarnation and redemption.     

An investigation of the use of linguistic probes “by” and “in order to” in assessing moral grammar

Proponents of the linguistic analogy suggest that methodologies originally developed for investigating linguistic grammar can also be fruitfully applied to the empirical study of moral grammar: the causal and intentional representations of moral events which – according to the linguistic analogy – drive moral judgements. In the current study, we put this claim to the empirical test. Participants were presented with moral dilemmas which previously have been shown to implement a central principle in moral judgements: the principle of double effect (PDE). Participants responded to by and in order to probes to assess causal and intentional representations of this principle. Results show that these linguistic probes do not relate to moral judgement in the manner predicted by proponents of the linguistic analogy and moral grammar. Although the linguistic analogy is a theoretically rich framework, the procedures posited to give it empirical traction require revision.     

中国古代亲隐原则探讨

亲隐原则是为解决情与法的冲突,依据两害相权取其轻的方法原则所确立的价值取舍原则,其现实基础是以血缘根基和家庭伦理本位为基本特点的中国传统社会。它适合中国过去的社会实际,对我国的传统伦理和古代法律都产生了重要影响,在今天也具有一定的立法意义。