LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English; abstract also in Chinese. Embedded in the narration of “Bioethics: Cross Cultural Explorations” is a trilogy of three nuanced and tightly interwoven accounts: (1) a descriptive account, (2) a reflective account, and (3) a futuristic account. Together, they offer invaluable insights into the complexity and challenges in conducting cross-cultural bioethics dialogues. These complexities are illustrated through Father Joseph Tham’s 12-year-long engagement with the project “Bioethics, Multiculturalism and Religion” in his capacity as Chair of (...) the UNESCO project in Bioethics and Human Rights. (Abstract taken from first paragraph of document) 本文評論了Tham的豐富論述，及其深刻解説後現代世界道德多元化和多元文化為跨文化生命倫理學對話帶來的複雜性和挑戰。本文亦回應了Tham提出應如何重塑跨文化接觸的本質、使命、目標和方法的關鍵問題，以協和 道德普遍性和多元性之間的緊張關係，並深化參與及對話，以促進有成效的跨文化接觸。. (shrink)

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

This paper is a tribute to H.T. Engelhardt Jr. for the intellectual resources he provided to challenge cosmopolitan liberalism as the foundation for an overarching global bioethics in the post-modern world. It is a also a tribute to the moral pluralism and cultural diversity which he argued so forcefully in all his works and which have inspired the flourishing of fierce bioethical debates across the world, including in the non-Western and Asian societies.

This paper aims to provide a rendition of the care ethic in Confucian philosophy and to argue that social policy developments in Hong Kong society, including health care policy, have been significantly shaped and justified in terms of the ideal of care in the Confucian moral tradition. On the basis of this analysis, the paper raises a number of questions about a recent proposal for health care reform for Hong Kong put forth by the Harvard School of Public Health which (...) argues for adopting the principle of equity as the overriding value for the moral foundation of Hong Kong's health care system. The paper examines how the over-emphasis on equity in the Harvard Report proposals can lead to the erosion of care and ultimately the eclipse of the vision of care in Hong Kong's health care system. It argues that the pursuit of equity, which is itself a valuable principle, should not displace the importance of the value of care or undermine the ideal of care and that health care decisions must be firmly embedded in local cultures and moral traditions. (shrink)

This article presents Mencius' concept of human dignity in the Chinese Confucian moral tradition, focused on the context of long-term care. The double nature of Mencius' notion of human dignity as an intrinsic quality of human beings qua being human is analyzed and contrasted with the dominant Western account of human dignity as grounded in personhood. Drawing on the heuristic force of an interview with an elder person in Hong Kong, the insights of the Mencian theory of human dignity are (...) used to provide a moral foundation for long-term care for elder persons in a context of diminishing personhood and shrinking autonomy. (shrink)

This collection of papers explores one of the central debates in the field of bioethics in the new century. It evaluates the controversy between the claim that there is a common morality accepted by all and the opposing view that there are different moral visions and moral rationalities, within which complex bioethical issues demand a solution. Contributions within this volume offer different approaches and perspectives on the pursuit of global ethics in the new century. They are organized under five major (...) themes. The first theme explores the different plausible understandings of the foundations of bioethics and contemporary reflections on the nature and role of moral theory. The second theme analyses the impact of moral loss and moral diversity on the character of bioethics and the search for alternative perspectives in post-traditional and post-modern societies. The third theme examines a number of theoretical issues raised by concrete examples of bioethnological applications, which bear importantly on contemporary debates between the possibility and impossibility of global bioethics. The fourth theme discusses examples of moral conflicts and dilemmas in everyday health care practice regarding the permissible treatment of humans by humans under different ethical perspectives and cultural traditions. The fifth theme explores alternative suggestions for opening up new modes of self-understanding and new strategies for bioethical exploration in the new century. The volume is an important work of reference for philosophers, moral theologians, ethicists, counsellors, doctors, nurses, sociologists, journalists, health care professionals, public policy makers and everyone who is interested in the profound ethical issues arising from modern technological advancements which are not only transforming our lives but are also demanding urgent ethical decision-making and `pragmatic' solutions from a cross-cultural perspective. (shrink)

This essay aims to provide a philosophical analysis of the Chinese concept of cheng (sincerity) as a political virtue that could be incorporated to ground a duty of civility in liberal deliberative democracy. It is argued here that the virtue of sincerity is an essential feature of the liberal political culture taken for granted by Rawls in his theory of public reason. Ideal procedures and public discourse are not sufficient to generate civic virtues. The goal of this essay is to (...) show how, in the Chinese conception, the root of civility lies in the virtue of Cheng, which can provide the moral grounding for a duty of civility that is essential to sustaining the stability and overcoming the problem of defection from support of the common good in pluralistic states. (shrink)

This article presents Mencius' concept of human dignity in the Chinese Confucian moral tradition, focused on the context of long-term care. The double nature of Mencius' notion of human dignity as an intrinsic quality of human beings qua being human is analyzed and contrasted with the dominant Western account of human dignity as grounded in personhood. Drawing on the heuristic force of an interview with an elder person in Hong Kong, the insights of the Mencian theory of human dignity are (...) used to provide a moral foundation for long-term care for elder persons in a context of diminishing personhood and shrinking autonomy. (shrink)

Harmony has become a major challenge for modern governance in the twenty-first century because of the multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character of our increasingly globalized societies. Governments all over the world are facing growing pressure to integrate the many diverse elements and subcultures which make up modern pluralistic societies. This book examines the idea of harmony, and its place in politics and governance, both in theory and practice, in Asia, the West and elsewhere. It explores and analyses the meanings, mechanisms, (...) dimensions and methodologies of harmony as a normative political ideal in both Western and Asian philosophical traditions. The book argues that in Western political thought - which sees politics as primarily concerned with resolving social conflicts and protecting individual rights - the concept of harmony has often been neglected. In contrast, since earliest times harmony or ‘he’ has been a profound theme in Confucian thought, and current leaders of many East Asian governments, and the Chinese government, have explicitly declared that the realisation of a harmonious society is their aim. The book also assesses how harmony is pursued, jeopardized or deformed in the real world of politics, based upon empirical analysis of a variety of different cultural, social and political contexts, including: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Denmark, Latin America and the Scandinavian countries. It shows how harmony as an organizing concept can help to promote new thinking in governance, and overcome problems of modern-day governance like distrust, adversarial conflicts, hyper-individualism, coercive state intervention, and free-market alienation. It also discusses the potential problems posed by the pursuit of harmony, in particular in the grave threat of totalitarianism, and considers how these risks could best be mitigated. (shrink)

I first sketch an account of humility as a character trait in which we are unimpressed with our good, envied, or admired features, achievements, etc., where these lack significant salience for our image of ourselves, because of the greater prominence of our limitations and flaws. I situate this view among several other recent conceptions of humility (also called modesty), dividing them between the inward-directed and outward-directed, distinguish mine from them, pose problems for each alternative account, and show how my understanding (...) of humility captures truths present but exaggerated in several of them. Responding to some problems for my view, including what I call “Driver’s Paradox”(i.e., the strangeness of someone’s proclaiming ‘I’m humble!’), I suggest that some over-ambitious claims about our moral responsibilities may indicate a lack of proper humility. I discuss the relationship of the character trait of humility both to what humiliates and to what humbles, concluding with consideration of the background assumptions against which, and the circumstances in which, humility may reasonably be classified as a moral virtue. (shrink)

A surprisingly large number of lottery prizes go unclaimed every year. This leads us to suspect that what people bet on is not only money, but also good mood. We conducted three studies to explain, from an emotional perspective, why people play lottery games. We first conducted two survey studies to assess mood state reported by online (Study 1a) and offline lottery buyers (Study 1b) at different stages of lottery play. The results revealed that participants’ highest mood appeared before knowing (...) whether they had won. In Study 2, we manipulated the means of reward (lottery tickets vs. cash) and compared participants’ mood changes at different stages of a rewards game in the laboratory. We found the following: first, lottery group participants were generally in a better mood; second, 42% of lottery group participants did not come to the laboratory to collect scratch cards; and third, lottery group participants took more time to return to the laboratory to check their tickets than participants in the cash group. In Study 3, we examined whether priming good or bad mood could influence participants’ preferences for cash versus lottery tickets. The results revealed that participants who were primed for poor mood had a higher preference for lottery tickets compared with their good mood counterparts. These findings suggest that what our participants sought in lottery play was not only money, but improved mood. (shrink)

Based on empirical data from a qualitative study, this paper explores the complexity of ‘real world’ management in Hong Kong’s public sector, as contrasted with various paradigmatic claims under ‘new public management’ (NPM). A plurality of sub-worlds within the broad public sector is identified, which makes the management roles and responsibilities much less ‘homogenised’ than depicted in NPM exhortations. The instrumental rationality underpinning NPM is identified as too restrictive in understanding the way in which public managers reach decisions. When the (...) daily challenges of reconciling values and practices arising from the complexities of politics, policies and service delivery are considered it is necessary to incorporate ideas related to procedural and expressive rationality to fully appreciate the nature of management in public organisations. (shrink)

In this article I argue for increased attention to the supernatural as a site for inquiry into, and elaboration of, affect. In attending to how and when people encounter ghosts in Thailand, affect is approached as a moving, interpersonal field of wishes and desires. These wishes and desires circulate within intersubjective spaces, and are sometimes experienced as coalesced, embodied emotions. In highlighting such an orientation, affect can be understood as not just an intersubjective project but also a spiritual one. I (...) suggest that we pay special attention to this quality of the supernatural as an affective force and to the intersubjective, affective currents of emotion. (shrink)

Background Families whose child has unexplained intellectual or developmental differences often hope that a genetic diagnosis will lower barriers to community-based therapeutic and support services. However, there is little known about efforts to mobilize genetic information outside the clinic or how socioeconomic disadvantage shapes and constrains outcomes.Methods We conducted an ethnographic study with predominantly socioeconomically disadvantaged families enrolled in a multi-year genomics research study, including clinic observations and in-depth interviews in English and Spanish at multiple time points. Coding and thematic (...) development were used to collaboratively interpret fieldnotes and transcripts.Results Thirty-two families participated. Themes included familial expectations that a genetic diagnosis could be translated into information, understanding, and assistance to improve the quality of a child’s day-to-day life. After sequencing, however, genetic information was not readily converted into improved access to services beyond the clinic, with families often struggling to use a genetic diagnosis to advocate for their child.Conclusion Families’ ability to use a genetic diagnosis as an effective advocacy tool beyond the clinic was limited by the knowledge and resources available to them, and by the eligibility criteria used by therapeutic service providers’ – which focused on clinical diagnosis and functional criteria more than etiologic information. All families undertaking genomic testing, particularly those who are disadvantaged, need additional support to understand the limits and potential benefits of genetic information beyond the clinic. (shrink)

There is a Turing computable embedding $\Phi $ of directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$ in undirected graphs. Moreover, there is a fixed tuple of formulas that give a uniform effective interpretation; i.e., for all directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$, these formulas interpret $\mathcal {A}$ in $\Phi $. It follows that $\mathcal {A}$ is Medvedev reducible to $\Phi $ uniformly; i.e., $\mathcal {A}\leq _s\Phi $ with a fixed Turing operator that serves for all $\mathcal {A}$. We observe that there is a graph G (...) that is not Medvedev reducible to any linear ordering. Hence, G is not effectively interpreted in any linear ordering. Similarly, there is a graph that is not interpreted in any linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _2$ formulas. Any graph can be interpreted in a linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _3$ formulas. Friedman and Stanley [4] gave a Turing computable embedding L of directed graphs in linear orderings. We show that there is no fixed tuple of $L_{\omega _1\omega }$ -formulas that, for all G, interpret the input graph G in the output linear ordering $L$. Harrison-Trainor and Montalbán [7] have also shown this, by a quite different proof. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Angiogenesis, the generation of new blood vessels from pre‐existing vessels, is an integral component of wound healing, responses to inflammation and other physiologic processes. It is also an essential part of tumor growth; in the absence of new vessel formation, tumors cannot expand beyond a small volume. Although much is known about angiogenesis and its regulation, there is no overall theory that describes or explains this process. It is here suggested that the intracrine hypothesis, which ascribes to certain extracellular signaling (...) peptides (whether hormones, growth factors, DNA‐binding proteins or enzymes) a role in both intracellular biology and extracellular signaling, can contribute to a more general understanding of angiogenesis. Intracrine factors participate in angiogenesis in the following ways: (1) they can act within the cells that synthesized them (type I intracrine action), (2) they can be secreted and then taken up by their cell of synthesis to act intracellularly (type II intracrine action ), or (3) they can be secreted and internalized by a distant target cell (type III intracrine action). The parallels between the intracrine growth factor mechanisms cancer cells employ in stimulating their own growth and the mechanisms operative in endothelial cell proliferation during angiogenesis (“intracrine reciprocity”) are discussed. Collectively, these explorations lead to testable hypotheses regarding the regulation of normal and pathological angiogenesis, and point to similarities between tumor‐induced angiogenesis and tissue differentiation. BioEssays 28: 943–953, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HINDUISM AND MIMETIC THEORY: A RESPONSE Julia W. Shinnick Austin, Texas i: Introduction "would like to thankProfessor Clooney for his thorough presentation.ofthe enormously complex and layeredtreatment ofviolence within Hindu religious traditions. In his paper I found many aspects of Hinduism that directly engage the mimetic theory, and I hope that I can articulate some of these in such a way as to initiate discussion during the next hour (...) or so this afternoon. As one of the so-called "Girardians," my first impression in response to Professor Clooney's paper is that the complexity of Hindu attitudes toward violence and sacrifice seem to indicate an awareness of the ritualization and control of violence, as developed over a very long period of time. I. Language of Avoidance/Denial: The Horse I would like to start with a small detail, but one which seems to me key to many larger issues in light of the mimetic theory: the ritual directions and prayers [1.1] in which the words "to kill" and "to die" are carefully avoided through the substitutions of such words as "he takes hold of and "he makes consent." I might add here also, that the avoidance ofusing "real" words for what is "really" being doneDkilling the animalDreminds me to some extent of the use of language by contemporary torturers as analyzed in the book The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking ofthe World by Elaine Scarry. Scarry argues that the language used by torturers avoids any acknowledg- Julia W. Shinnick141 ment of the real actions they are committing, as well as any acknowledgment of the very real pain they are causing their victims; furthermore, it is a dehumanizing language, referring to the victims as, for example, submarines, in one particular type of torture. This discrepancy between language and actual action is intriguing in both cases. Granted, the sacrificers in the Rg Veda do not deny that they are sacrificing the horse, and the "apology" (the words to the horseD"Do not let the axe linger in yourbody...") is not part ofan act oftorture, but the words have in common with Scarry's report a certain denial or avoidance of the reality of both the actions ofkilling and/orharming and the result ofthese actions, pain and/or death. Furthermore, the avoidance of the words "to kill" and "to die" would fit in with the mimetic theory's idea ofprohibiting the ritual from bringing actual facts of the founding murder to consciousness. II.Sacrificial Instructions The words addressed to the horse in the Rg Veda [I.l]and the instructions for the treatment of animals to be sacrificedO'The axe penetrates the thirty-four ribs of the swift horse...so that the limbs may be unperforated, and recapitulating, joint by joint "Dseem to me to intersect with the mimetic theory in terms of ritual sacrifice as a reenactment of the founding conflict. As I understand it, in the mimetic theory, one reason for careful, detailed ritual instructions and the sense ofgreatdangerin sacrifice (the sense that if the ritual is not carried out exactly and correctly, something horrible might happen) has to do with a non-conscious fear of unleashing the mimetic crisis all over again. I see aspects of this in the minutely detailed instructions to the priest such as the importance of leading the horse but not holding on to it, and the desire to pacify the animal to be sacrificed. These kinds of details are of course also present in other sacrifice rituals. For example, in Perpetua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman, Joyce Salisbury speaks of the simultaneous sacrifice of hundreds of children in ancient Carthage during the Punic Wars. The children had to be (appear) "willing" to be sacrificed. Ifthey cried out, the sacrifice was considered invalid. The parents also had to be (appear) "willing;" ifthe mother shed a tear, the sacrifice was invalid. Thus, immediately before the fatal knife thrust, the sacrificing parents would caress their children and tickle them to make them laugh. III.Violence and Kings According to James Williams in his introduction to chapter 6 of The 142Hinduism and Mimetic Theory: A Response Girard Reader, one of... (shrink)