There are a number of recent attempts to introduce Confucian values to the ethical analysis of technology. These works, however, have not attended sufficiently to one central aspect of Confucianism, namely Ritual (‘Li’). Li is central to Confucian ethics, and it has been suggested that the emphasis on Li in Confucian ethics is what distinguishes it from other ethical traditions. Any discussion of Confucian ethics for technology, therefore, remains incomplete without accounting for Li. This chapter aims to elaborate on the (...) concept of Confucian Li and discuss its relevance to ethics of technology. Particularly, by referring to Li’s communicative, formative, and aesthetic function, I formulate an approach to ethics of technology with an emphasis on community, performance, and the aesthetic and demonstrate how this approach proceeds with the ethical analysis of technology. In doing so, I attempt to answer the question: why Confucianism matters in ethics of technology. (shrink)

I thought the paper by Kai-yee Wong and Chris Fraser was fascinating and insightful. Two things I especially appreciated are the clarity with which they summarize my views. I think they are quite fair and accurate. Second, I appreciate their suggestion that the way to deal with the practical problem of weakness of will has much to do with the role of the Background in shaping our actions. I think they are especially on the right track when they say (...) that the improvement of Background skills may actually narrow the range of real options for action, (p. 21) nonetheless, they do not decrease freedom. As they say, “It is a process of strengthening the self, and the agent is likely to experience the concomitant restriction of ‘live’ options not as a limitation but as strength of character.” (p. 21). That seems to me very much on the right track. What they are suggesting, and it is a powerful addition to my own writings, is that we should not just think of the Background as facilitating languages, games and social practices generally, but for morality as well (p. 23). (shrink)

The essence of the associated-proposition strategy is to distinguish the necessary proposition _expressed by_ a sentence.

By melodic landscape, this paper points to natural milieus such as mountains whose motifs are caught up in contrapuntal relations. With Merleau-Ponty, the structure of the world is a symphony, and the production of life which implicates both organism and environment as unfurling of Umwelt is ‘a melody that sings itself’. For the Chinese culture, mountains have been deemed virtuous in Confucianism, immortal by Daoists, and spiritual for a Buddhist to reach a substrate level of pure stream of a-subjective consciousness. (...) A Chinese painter-poet within the ‘mountain-water’ genre would consider mountains as performance of events, a concert of vibration of light, shape and sound, movement and rest. Insofar as art is to create energy transfer, Chinese artists of mountains aim at concerting with nature as organised by rhythms and conspecifics, unfolding contrapuntal melodies with all kinds of counterpoints. As Deleuze and Guattari's notion of refrains are the three forces or tempos of chaos, earth and world confronting/converging one another, this paper endeavours to find out, first, how Deleuze and Guattari's geological, organic and alloplastic stratifications can be put alongside mountains, animals, plants and arts, and second, how this notion can contribute to our new appreciation of the way Chinese mountains in arts can give out music. (shrink)

The Art of War application to education is about solving problems to improve student and school success. The Art of War describes the significance of a leader and his knowledge and prudent application of the strategies. At the core of theses strategies is the non-negotiable moral purpose of the leader to be reinforced by other fine qualities as wisdom, commitment, discipline, and courage.

Some researchers have concluded that nonverbal recognition is generally superior to verbal recognition memory performance. The present study involved two experiments designed to assess claims of superior nonverbal memory. Experiment 1 compared performance for letter (common words) and nonletter (meaningful line drawings) items with matched high-imagery values. Experiment 2 compared performance for matched low-imagery items consisting of letters (pseudowords) and nonletter items (geometric matrices). Performance did not differ significantly between verbal and nonverbal items in either experiment, although the expected effects (...) of presentation rate and type of retrieval task were significant. It was concluded that recognition memory performance is not necessarily dependent upon the “verbalness ” or “non-verbalness ” of stimulus items. (shrink)

Several important physical implications left out in The Five Dimension Space-Time Universe: A creation and grand unified field theory model. Book, are presented under rigorous mathematical theorems. It was found that Temperature, a classical variable, must be added as an imaginary component to time, under the Quantum uncertainty dt∙dE = h/2π, so that the Gell-Mann Quark model can be verified, with gauge invariance, to form hadrons at the Bethe Fusion Temperature. Accordingly from the corresponding uncertainty dp∙dr = h/2π. Pairs of (...) Diagonal Long Range Ordered gravitons, with continuous frequency spectrum together with those represented by magnetic monopoles must be formed within the space r, of the homogenous 5D manifold, without the presents of photons, thus defines the 5D as a Black Hole. Then from which we can derive the classical Newtonian Law of attractive Gravity, as the 5D manifold is mapped by Perelmann Ricci-flow entropy mapping and the DLRO graviton pair symmetry is broken and converted into two masses, with motions satisfying Special Relativity in the doughnut shape Lorentz manifold, thus indirectly verifies the principle of Covariant Riemannian curvatures and General Relativity theory. (shrink)

In this book, David B. Wong defends an ambitious and important new version of moral relativism. He does not espouse the type of relativism that says anything goes, but he does start with a relativist stance against alternative theories such that there need not be only one universal truth. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities existing across different traditions and cultures, all with one core human question as to how we can all live (...) together. (shrink)

The present study investigates the dynamics of emotional processing and awareness using an affective facial priming paradigm in conjunction with a multimodal assessment of awareness. Key facial primes are visually masked, and are presented for brief and extended durations. Using a preference measure, we examine whether the effects of the primes differ qualitatively . We show that: unconscious affective priming with faces emerges strongly in initial presentations and diminishes rapidly with repetition; conscious affective priming also emerges strongly in initial presentations, (...) however it persists in strength with repetition; and in contrast to other reports on the salience of negative stimuli, happy faces appear more salient than sad faces when presented outside awareness. We discuss the limits and extensions of unconscious affective priming with faces, and consider several methodological and conceptual questions concerning emotional processing out of awareness. (shrink)

The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are "generally present" in human beings, if not in all individuals. The process (...) of socialization is an attempt to embed the recognition of what we have moral reason to do in the intentional content of one's feelings. E.g., learning that about others' suffering embeds their suffering as a reason to help in the intentional content of incipient compassionate feelings. This endows the reason with motivational efficacy while conferring further direction to the feelings in ways that shape us for social cooperation. (shrink)

This paper is to inform the recent situations of work by the foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong through the lens of Covid-19. Through the interviews with seven informants — two employers and five FDWs, stories describing the changes in their working conditions, rights and entitlement, and the contextual environment related to the impacts of Covid-19 were collected. They were analysed through three theoretical tools — visibility/invisibility, mobility/immobility, and work boundary. The findings show that under the Covid-19 crisis, the (...) FDWs experienced more hardships and struggles in both the home country and host country. The paradoxes of visibility/invisibility and mobility/immobility together with blurred work boundary were found in their experience of work, rights and entitlement, and the contextual environment. On one hand, the employers’ power of controlling FDWs has increased, but the agency to resist by the FDWs has decreased making them to turn to more passive means of resistance which could harm the FDWs’ physical and mental health and wellbeing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hermeneutics, Neuroscience and PsychiatryMichael T. H. Wong, MBBS, MD, MA, MDiv, PhD, FRCPsych, FRANZCP, FHKAM (bio)Hermeneutic practice in mental health has been a theme in Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (PPP) since its very beginnings. In this essay I argue that hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation, promotes therapeutic interaction between mental health professionals, patients and their family.Why does this patient present in such a way at this (...) particular point in time? The distressing symptoms are there. The changes in behavior are obvious. Impairments of functions are hurting. A mental illness clearly runs in the family. There were early losses of loved ones, physical abuse at home, bullying by peers and self-medication with drugs and alcohol. Three in four adults with a mental illness first experienced that before they turned 24. The brain goes through major reorganization during adolescence and early adulthood. If synaptic pruning went wrong, psychoses emerged. When stresses activated the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis the elevated cortisol level impacted the size and function of the hippocampus and amygdala in the genetically vulnerable; anxiety, depression, bipolar, and personality disorders developed. The patient needs a voice/language to describe all these experiences and events and the psychiatrist needs a discourse to make sense of them.Eisenberg laments the swings between "brainlessness" and "mindlessness" in psychiatry. Engel argues for a "biopsychosocial" discourse. The major challenge for psychiatry is how to organize clinical information of different nature (categories, dimensions, narratives; i.e., objective vs. subjective, personal vs. interpersonal) into a coherent and comprehensible account for us all. Mental illnesses are not only neuropsychiatric spectrum disorders but also dysfunctions of social relationship and environmental/ecological adaptation. Psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience per se lacks the semantics to address the rich interactions between the physical, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual in the illness experience of our patients. Explanation in the diagnostic formulation (objective scientific discourse on cause and effect) and understanding in the patient narrative (subjective ordinary everyday discourse on significance and meaning) are irreducible to each other (Wong, 2018). They instead interact with one another to achieve an integrative formulation, not through merging different discourses into a single assertion/monologue but via the dialectic/dialogue of "explaining more in order to understand better," as Ricoeur puts it, and between "the whole and the parts," as Schleiermacher highlights.This "therapeutic hermeneutic circle" of "explanation vs understanding" and "the whole vs the parts" includes symptoms behavior function and life events. It correlates between bio-psychosociocultural-spiritual dimensions/perspectives and does not reduce them to any particular/single [End Page 13] stance. The whole integrates the parts and the parts enrich the whole. It explains but does not explain away. It understands through an articulation of meaning and significance. This discourse is a multilayered (bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual) personal narrative that formulates diagnosis and care in a correlative (linking different voices/discourses) and non-reductive (no particular voice/discourse is prejudiced against) manner that is comprehensible to us all (Wong, 2021).PPP will be an excellent forum for discussing clinical hermeneutics in the future. In this digital era of social media and virtual reality, hermeneutics has the never-ending task to tackle the unprecedented challenges to meaning illness and health posed by polarizing discourses.Michael T. H. Wong Michael T.H. Wong, MBBS, MD, MA, MDiv, PhD, FRCPsych, FRANZCP, FHKAM, is Hon Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China. Michael is Chair, Section of Philosophy & Humanities in Psychiatry, World Psychiatric Association. He is an Organizational Partner & International Lead with The Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care, St Catherine's College Oxford. He is Advisor to the Chinese Health Foundation of Australia.ReferencesWong M. T. H. (2018). Ricoeur and the third discourse of the person: From philosophy and neuroscience to psychiatry and theology. London: Lexington Books. Google ScholarWong, M. T. H. (2021). Values, meanings, hermeneutics and mental health. In Stoyanov, D., Fulford, K. M. W. F., Stanghellini, G., Van Staden, W., & Wong, M. TH. (Eds.), International perspectives in values-based mental health practice: Case studies and commentaries (pp. 341–349... (shrink)

Hegel’s famous criticism of Laozi in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, has been a center of controversy in comparative philosophy. It is often regarded as an example of the unfair treatment of Chinese philosophy by its Western counterpart, that the West is measuring the East according to its own standard, imposing on the latter its understanding of what philosophy should be, passing judgment on China that it has no mature philosophy, or, if it has, that it is still (...) in an unsophisticated, primitive stage. However, there has been little serious and detailed discussion about Hegel’s argument in this important and representative document in the dialogue between Western and Chinese philosophy. Most of the .. (shrink)

I argue that it is a main theme of Davidson's theory of interpretation that interpretive charity implies the impossibility of massive disagreement. There is clear textual support for that. I then argue that from the first-person point of view of a full-blooded interpreter, the theme must be accepted; and that is precisely why Davidson accepts it. If massive disagreement between speaker and interpreter seems to us easy to imagine, it is only because the imagination involved is third-personal and not full-blooded.

This is a critical discussion of Paul Humphreys's fusion view of emergence, focusing on the basal loss feature of his ontology. The discussion yields some general morals for special science ontology.

The practice of covertly administering medication is controversial. Although condemned by some as overly paternalistic, others have suggested that it may be acceptable if patients have permanent mental incapacity and refuse needed treatment. Ethical, legal, and clinical considerations become more complex when the mental incapacity is temporary and when the medication actually serves to restore autonomy. We discuss these issues in the context of a young man with schizophrenia. His mother had been giving him antipsychotic medication covertly in his soup. (...) Should the doctor continue to provide a prescription, thus allowing this to continue? We discuss this case based on the “four principles” ethical framework, addressing the conflict between autonomy and beneficence/non-maleficence, the role of antipsychotics as an autonomy restoring agent, truth telling and the balance between individual versus family autonomy. (shrink)

With advances in genetic technology, there are increasing concerns about the way in which genetic information may be abused, particularly in people at increased genetic risk of developing certain disorders. In a recent case in Hong Kong, the court ruled that it was unlawful for the civil service to discriminate in employment, for the sake of public safety, against people with a family history of mental illness. The plaintiffs showed no signs of any mental health problems and no genetic testing (...) was performed. This was the first case concerning genetic discrimination in common law jurisdictions, therefore the court's judgment has implications for how genetic discrimination cases may be considered in the future. The court considered it inappropriate to apply population statistics or lifetime risks to individuals while examining fitness for work. It recommended an individualised assessment of specific risks within the job, relative to other risks posed by that workplace. (shrink)

This paper aims at engaging Kant’s and Schelling’s theories of time in dialogue. It begins with Schelling’s famous criticism of Kant’s theory of time in his Weltalter (Ages of the World). It will examine this question from four main perspectives, namely the unity of time; time and a unitary object of experience;subjectivity of time; and the problem of infinity of time. It will show that Schelling’s criticism may instigate some fundamental reflections on Kant’s theory oftime, the relation between objective and (...) subjective time, and the possibilities of connecting Kant’s different meanings of time in his first Critique. Further, it willshow that despite the fundamental differences between Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophical systems, some of Schelling’s ideas about time may have their earlier expressions in Kant. While Schelling has gone further and radicalized some insights from Kant in his own version of idealism, his criticism of Kant may find possible responses from the latter’s first Critique. (shrink)

Although the same environmental regulations apply to all regions in China, legal enforcement can be different due to local economic development priorities. There is still a lack of knowledge about how regional disparities affect the operating performance results of the implementation of corporate environmental management practices, thus providing little information for foreign companies when they invest and develop their production base in China. To fill this research gap, this paper collects data from the Fortune 500 Chinese firms to investigate the (...) moderating role of regional disparities in affecting the performance results of corporate environmental management efforts based on the institutional theory. The disclosed corporate environmental responsibility practices serve as proxy to represent corporate environmental management practices. Content analysis approach was applied to collect and analyze CER practices published in the corporate reports of Chinese manufacturers. The results show that CER has a positive impact on operating income, while regional disparities influence the relationship between CER and corporate operating income. Specifically, CER and operating income are positively related in Eastern China; on the contrary, they are negatively related in Western China. This paper adds to the body of knowledge about environmental discrepancies in the same emerging economy, and provides insights for systematic consideration in terms of the issues of government environmental regulations and corporate environmental strategies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to situate the early Indian (Nikāya) Buddhist notion of karmic causation within the mental causation discourse in the Western analytic tradition, which concerns causal transactions involving mental events, such as desires, beliefs, and intentions, whether the transactions are between mental events, or between mental events and physical events. Karmic causation involves actional causes, in concert with non-actional causes, and their experiential effects on the actor, in concert with non-experiential effects. The problems generated by karmic (...) causation in Buddhism overlap with those generated by mental causation in the Western analytic tradition. They include how the mental aspects relate to the physical aspects of the self, sense perception, and action, as well as how the mental and physical aspects of an actional cause relate to the experiential and non-experiential aspects of an effect on the actor. -/- To make sense of mental causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as causation, the self, sense perception, and action. Similarly, to make sense of karmic causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda), the fivefold laws of nature (pañca-niyāma), the five aggregates (pañca-khandha), the six sense bases (Saḷayatana), action (karma), and results (vipāka). I shall discuss these concepts under the headings of causation, the self, sense perception, and action before I move on to address karmic causation in the context of the mental causation debate. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References Further reading.

The anthropological turn, which Pannenberg decisively and successfully executed in the early 1980s, has provided his latest ethical argumentation with an extra dimension and increased depth. Pannenberg now believes that ethics has its foundations in anthropology rather than directly in dogmatics. The ethical as a common concern of all humankind must not be isolated and made independent of metaphysics and religion. For only then can the claim of universal validity for ethics be sustained, which in turn Pannenberg sees as the (...) condition of its binding nature for Christians. Our awareness of moral obligations would become vague when it cannot be clarified in terms of any universally valid norms. Our final verdict on Pannenberg's new approach, however, must await greater clarity on whether his universal moral claim can withstand the potent challenge arising in today's increasingly pluralistic world; otherwise, his latest methodology would only bring him from the historicist fringe to the anthropologist margin. (shrink)

It has been suggested that a reporting channel administered by a third-party may represent a stronger procedural safeguard of anonymity and avoids the appearance of impropriety. This study examines whistleblowing intentions among lower-tier employees, specifically examines whether an externally-administered reporting channel increases whistleblowing intentions compared to an internally-administered one. In contrast to the findings of an earlier study by Kaplan et al. :273–288, 2009), our results suggest that whistle-blowing intentions are higher when the reporting channel is administered externally than when (...) it is administered internally. We also find that an externally-administered reporting channel mitigates the negative effect of bystanders on whistleblowing intentions. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper starts by investigating Ackermann's interpretation of finite set theory in the natural numbers. We give a formal version of this interpretation from Peano arithmetic (PA) to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the infinity axiom negated (ZF−inf) and provide an inverse interpretation going the other way. In particular, we emphasize the precise axiomatization of our set theory that is required and point out the necessity of the axiom of transitive containment or (equivalently) the axiom scheme of ∈-induction. This clarifies the (...) nature of the equivalence of PA and ZF−inf and corrects some errors in the literature. We also survey the restrictions of the Ackermann interpretation and its inverse to subsystems of PA and ZF−inf, where full induction, replacement, or separation is not assumed. The paper concludes with a discussion on the problems one faces when the totality of exponentiation fails, or when the existence of unordered pairs or power sets is not guaranteed. (shrink)

The Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is designed to serve as a computational infrastructure that can permit global exploration and utilization of data and information relevant to salivaomics. SKB is created by aligning (1) the saliva biomarker discovery and validation resources at UCLA with (2) the ontology resources developed by the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry, including a new Saliva Ontology (SALO). We define the Saliva Ontology (SALO; http://www.skb.ucla.edu/SALO/) as a consensus-based controlled vocabulary of terms and relations dedicated to the salivaomics (...) domain and to saliva-related diagnostics following the principles of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry. The Saliva Ontology is an ongoing exploratory initiative. The ontology will be used to facilitate salivaomics data retrieval and integration across multiple fields of research together with data analysis and data mining. The ontology will be tested through its ability to serve the annotation ('tagging') of a representative corpus of salivaomics research literature that is to be incorporated into the SKB. Background Saliva (oral fluid) is an emerging biofluid for non-invasive diagnostics used in the detection of human diseases. The need to advance saliva research is strongly emphasized by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and is included in the NIDCR's 2004- 2009 expert panel long-term research agenda [1]. The ability to monitor health status, disease onset, progression, recurrence and treatment outcome through noninvasive means is highly important to advancing health care management. Saliva is a perfect medium to be explored for personalized individual medicine including diagnostics, offering a non-invasive, easy to obtain means for detecting and monitoring diseases. Saliva testing potentially allows the patient to collect their own saliva samples at home, yielding convenience for the patient and savings in health costs, and facilitating multiple sampling. Specimen collection is less objectionable to patients and easier in children and elderly individuals. Due to these advantages. (shrink)

Drawing on the general ethics and social psychology literature, this study presents a model to delineate the major factors likely to affect consumers’ intentions to bring their own shopping bags when visiting a supermarket (called “bring your own bags” or “BYOB” intention). The model is empirically validated using a survey of 250 Chinese consumers. Overall, the findings support the hypothesized direct influence of teleological evaluation and habit on BYOB intention, as well as that of deontological evaluation and teleological evaluation on (...) ethical judgment about the BYOB practice. Teleological evaluation exerts a much stronger influence on ethical judgment than does deontological evaluation. In addition, the findings reveal that consumers who perceive the BYOB practice to be more important are more inclined to rely on their ethical judgment to derive their BYOB intention. Academically, these findings provide some encouraging evidence for the application of general ethics theories to explain green consumption-related practices. Practically, the findings also suggest that a utilitarian approach (i.e., emphasizing the consequences of BYOB) may represent an effective means for the Chinese government to promote BYOB practice among consumers. (shrink)