Representing sexuality and morality in sex education picture books in contemporary China

This study conducts a social semiotic analysis of six sex education picture books for preschool children in the People’s Republic of China. Following van Leeuwen’s framework for analysing the discursive construction of social actors, this paper examines two types of social actors directly associated with the education of human sexuality: the physical body of human beings and the institutional, disciplinary body of the family. The analysis of the linguistic and visual representations of the two types of social actors reveals a significant compromise of biosexuality to the complicated psychosexual and sociosexual concerns in the People’s Republic of China. The introduction of biological knowledge about human reproduction is conducted in such a manner that aims to instil the appropriate moral values and behaviours that are regarded as the norm in contemporary Chinese culture as well as ensuring the sound physical and psychological development of young children.     

儒家道德权利与政治权利要义

作为社会身份和政治资格的人权在儒家“孔仁孟义”的思想体系中被表达为“内圣外王”之道,其在“修齐治平”的实现程序之中又以“公私之辨”和“义利之辨”标志出政治伦理原则和“以德限权”的社会治理特色。儒家以“公权利”揭示人的自然权利,以其公平性和自然性引申为人的道德权利;再以道德权利为基础推演出人的政治权利,而“私权力”则仅为政治权利的异化形式,其极端化的结果就是“以权谋私”,后者因其“侵害公权利”的实质,儒家的人提倡以“道德权利”加以限制,故称为“德治”。儒家的道德权利与政治权利不仅影响了中国社会的思想和制度传统,而且其思想特色通过“为人民服务”、“改革开放”、“三个代表”和“三为”等原则亦被创造性地运用于当代中国共产党人的治国理政事业之中。     

儒家君子观与为政之道的德行实践

传统儒家"君子"称谓作为一种行为规范,向古人指明了恰当的作为方向,也凸显了中国古代政治的德性追求.挖掘儒家"君子"之良善观念,重点在于厘清中国古典政治理念与现代政治思想之间的会通,探究"君子儒"所蕴含的理想人格,分析君子养成"三达德"君子之道的行为规范,归纳儒家"修己安人""尊五美屏四恶""内圣外王"的为政之道.借由中国传统道德与当代公共责任伦理的契合,探讨儒家君子观之国家治理的德性意义.     

吉利根的关怀道德取向理论及启示

吉利根是享誉世界的美国心理学家,其关怀道德取向理论最大的贡献在于把女性带入了心理学世界,提出了女性道德发展的三个水平和两个过渡时期,对道德心理学的发展作出了重大的贡献。然而各界对关怀道德取向理论仍存在误识,所以关怀道德理论仍需要重述几个问题,以便人们更好地领会吉利根的思想。尽管我国研究关怀道德取向理论尚处于不成熟阶段,但该理论对我国的道德教育具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Human Rights and Modern Liberalism: a Critique

The idea of human rights has become one of the central moral notions of both the theory and practice of international politics. While its foundation and future in the practice of politics looks bright, it is an idea that still causes great trouble at the theoretical level. What are human rights? Why do we have them? To what should we attribute the authority of their moral claims? The theorist Michael Freeman has suggested one theory that by addressing such questions may serve as a foundation for human rights. His theory, however, ends by begging the questions it set out to answer.     

Republicanism, Freedom from Domination, and the Cambridge Contextual Historians

Philip Pettit, in Republicanism: a Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), draws on the historiography of classical republicanism developed by the Cambridge Contextual Historians, John Pocock and Quentin Skinner, to set up a programme for the recovery of the Roman Republican notion of freedom, as freedom from domination. But it is my purpose to show that classical republicanism, as a theory of institutional complexity and balanced government, could not, and did not, lay exclusive claim to freedom from domination as a defining value. Positive freedom was a concept ubiquitous in Roman Law and promulgated in Natural Law as a universal human right. And it was just the ubiquitousness of this right to freedom, honoured more often in the breach than the observance, which prompted the scorn of early modern proto-feminists like Mary Astell and her contemporary, Judith Drake. The division of society into public and private spheres, which liberalism entrenched, precisely allowed democrats in the public sphere full rein as tyrants in the domestic sphere of the family, as these women were perspicacious enough to observe. When republicanism is defined in exclusively normative terms the rich institutional contextualism drops away, leaving no room for the issues it was designed to address: the problematic relation between values and institutions that lies at the heart of individual freedoms.     

浅论曾国藩伦理道德对公共道德建设的积极意义

中国现代化建设需要相应道德体系的支撑，需要对传统伦理道德的重构。曾国藩家训中道德思想以孝为基本核心，包含居家美德、个人道德修养、交接之道等，形成了自己独特的伦理道德体系，这有助于形成一个公平正义、诚信互爱、简朴清廉、忠义有孝的社会环境。对现代化进程中公共道德建设有着积极的作用。     

Review Article: Isaiah Berlin's Contribution to Modern Political Theory

Three recent studies of Isaiah Berlin's moral and political thought stress the significance of value pluralism for his oeuvre. Whilst this emphasis enables us to dispense with some rather misleading characterizations of Berlin's liberalism, it is less apparent that his political thought can be successfully grounded within moral pluralism. Indeed his liberal beliefs sit rather more awkwardly within this ideological family than is usually assumed. Scholars seeking to revive Berlin's value pluralism in relation to contemporary challenges, such as multiculturalism, have not successfully demonstrated the utility of his thinking in relation to such problems, and have developed their arguments by downplaying the geo-political contexts which shaped his intellectual purposes. Yet his critics have neglected the fertility and range of his thought, aspects of which remain pertinent for those studying political thought in general and liberalism in particular.     

Structural injustice and the legitimacy of the state-centric system

ABSTRACT

Catherine Lu’s seminal Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics is right to stress the enduring nature of some colonialist structural indignities. It is less clear, however, if structural injustices justify Lu’s demand for revolutionary changes of the global order. Before transforming the pluralist state-centric system, we need transparent criteria that help us agree on the severity of structural injustices. Considering Lu’s strong focus on the colonialist origins of contemporary injustices, one would also like to know if and how their historical background affects their present moral status. The essay concludes that, in a multicultural global society with diverse moral values, we should focus on tackling the most glaring injustices and on rectifying those where accountabilities are least controversial.     

Conservative Party Modernisation and David Cameron's Politics of the Family

A key feature of David Cameron's electoral appeal is his carefully cultivated image as a ‘family man’. Cameron has repeatedly stressed the importance of the family to his political views and stated his desire to see marriage rewarded through the tax system. At the same time, Cameron has presented himself as a modernising leader, keen to demonstrate that he and his party are in touch with contemporary society. Central to this effort to detoxify the Conservative brand has been an emphasis on social liberalism. The potential conflict between these two objectives reflects the division in the party between social liberals and traditionalists, which has become increasingly apparent over the past decade. This article examines Conservative party policy and rhetoric on social and moral issues since 1997, particularly gay rights and family policy. It notes that a significant divide remains in the Conservative party between social liberals and traditionalists, so in this respect Cameron's modernisation project remains far from complete.     

Nuclear deterrence: Bankrupt ideology

This article argues that nuclear deterrence is a contemporary ideology (an elaborately-developed set of convictions, socio-politically central, stable over time, idealistic in intent, widely and emotionally embraced). And vulnerable. Vulnerable to the critique of the social scientist who can raise questions about the reliability of nuclear deterrence as a cornerstone. Vulnerable to the critique of the moral philosopher who can raise important questions about the propriety of nuclear deterrence and the programmatic activities it underlies.     

Animals, Ethics and Public Policy

In orthodox moral thinking in the West, animals count for something but human interests take precedence. It is argued that this moral orthodoxy or animal welfare position is flawed. It fails to take into account that some animals, like humans, are persons and that some, so-called 'marginal' humans lack personhood. More importantly, although it is likely that animals do not have an interest in liberty for its own sake and have less of an interest in continued life than humans, there is little justification for the animal welfare claim that an animal's suffering should be regarded as less important morally than that of a human. It is concluded that the adoption of a 'sentiency position', whereby animals have a right not to suffer, has radical implications for the way animals are treated, ruling out intensive forms of animal agriculture and those scientific procedures that inflict suffering as morally illegitimate.     

The new Korean political economy: beyond the models of capitalism debate

Abstract

A key theme within the literature on the evolution of the Korean political economy since the 1997/8 crisis has been the extent to which Korea remains a ‘developmental state’ or has pursued radical neoliberal reform. These debates have not only reflected a concern with understanding the Korean economy but with a wider set of questions relating to the future of capitalist diversity within a globalized economy. By the late 1980s Korea had come to be regarded as a model of successful state-led late capitalist development. Korean modern economic history has insured that questions relating to the extent that it has pursued neoliberal reform have been of keen interest to students of political economy globally. This paper argues that substantive neoliberal reform has taken place in Korea since 1997. The thesis that a new ‘developmental state’ is in process of consolidating itself is simply wrong. However, the state's reform program interacted with material conditions and political coalitions at the meso level in a complex and uneven manner. In certain critical sectors, such as finance, a neoliberal regulatory regime has been consolidated. In others, such as telecommunications, developmentalist regulatory structures have proven to be highly resilient. In order to fully understand the complexity of the contemporary Korean political economy it is necessary, therefore, to prioritize the importance of meso-level analysis.     

Individuality,Hierarchy, and Dilemma: the Making of Confucian Cultural Citizenship in a Contemporary Chinese Classical School

Is Confucianism compatible with citizenship? If yes, how? Cultural transformation in recent citizenship studies provides a theoretical junction to bring the two concepts together. In terms of cultural citizenship, this paper explores the making of Confucian cultural citizens by analyzing students’ discourses in a Chinese Confucian classical school. It reveals (1) the process of moral self-transformation, whereby the individualities are embedded into ethical relations by the extensive readings of classical literature; (2) practically discursive contradictions between individualism and authoritarianism that is based on the notion of a cultural hierarchy; and (3) the institutional predicament in striving for the recognition of cultural citizenship by the state and society. Finally, it concludes that the dilemmas in discourses and status are part of the contradictions in the overall Chinese party-state’s management of individualization.     

A Case for reflexive politics: challenging Luhmann's account of the Political system

This article attempts an internal critique of N. Luhmann's account of the political system. Internal because it takes up the principal tense of system epistemology. Critical because it attempts to situate the potential for utopian politics within that framework which, according to Luhmann, precludes it. The article briefly explores this epistemology, its specific application to the political system and the negative conclusions that are drawn from this account for utopian politics. In order to confront these conclusions, the strategy of the argument is to extract from Luhmann's notion of political theory, as the meta-level of the political system, the possibility to problematize the terms in which the political system casts political questions. In political theory, this article argues, inheres the potential to turn politics reflexive. This in turn both suggusts opportunities for action carrying utopian vision but also leads to a better understanding of what shifts are involved in the social problematic of alternative politics that have shifted away from the framework in which Luhmann sees political possibility circumscribed.     

公共行政道德化的双重向度

公共行政道德化问题是当代公共行政研究中的一个极其重要的问题,也是行政改革和构建新型公共行政模式的一个重要突破口.公共行政的道德化包括两个向度:其一是公共行政的制度和体制的道德化,即在制度安排中有着道德化的合理规范,包含着道德实现的保障机制,同时,已经确立的制度又是有利于道德因素的生成和成长,能够对行政人员的道德修养的提高有着鼓励的作用;其二是行政人员的道德化,要求行政人员以道德主体的面目出现,在他的行政行为中从道德的原则出发,贯穿着道德精神,时时处处坚持道德的价值取向,公正地处理行政人员与政府的关系、与同事的关系和与公众之间的关系.没有制度的道德化,行政人员个体的道德是不稳定的;但是,如果没有行政人员的道德化,那么制度的道德就会成为空洞的教条.     

Mill and the Value of Moral Distress

People are sometimes distressed by the bare knowledge that lifestyles are being practised or opinions held which they take to be immoral. Is this distress to be regarded as harm for the purposes of Mill's Harm Principle? I argue, first, that this is an issue that is to be resolved not by analysis of the concept of harm but by reference to the arguments in On Liberty with which the Harm Principle is supported. Secondly, I argue that reference to those arguments makes it clear beyond doubt that, since Mill valued moral confrontation and the shattering of moral complacency as means to social progress, he must have regarded moral distress as a positive good rather than as a harm that society ought to intervene to prevent. Thirdly, I relate this interpretation to Mill's points about temperance, decency and good manners. I argue, finally, that my interpretation is inconsistent with Mill's underlying utilitarianism only if the latter is understood in a crudely hedonistic way.     

‘No Interest in Land': Legal and Spatial Enclosure of Gypsy-Travellers in Britain

This paper examines the place of Gypsy-Travellers within the British legal system. It considers the function of the law in establishing moral and social norms and pathologising aspects of Traveller life. It examines how a variety of legal principles, discourses and bureaucratic agencies combine to construct travellers as deviant with regard to the moral and social order. It considers the attempts in British law to control Travellers' spatial practices and nomadic lifestyle, and the ambivalent nature of legislation in this area. The Caravan Sites Act 1968 is examined in terms of its formation and implementation. The origin and impact of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 are assessed. It contends that the criminal justice system has its own rationality which may conflict with both that of the formal law and other parts of the state. It is argued that institutional discrimination exists within the legal system, based on ingrained ‘sedentarist' assumptions about what constitutes a normal way of life. Both the 1968 and the 1994 Acts can be criticised in these terms. Travellers have, however, been able to resist many of the practices of legal and spatial enclosure to which they are subject.     

‘Supreme Emergencies’, ontological holism,and rights to communal membership

This paper highlights the importance to just war theory of ontological questions about the constitution of personal identity. It does so through a critical reinterpretation of Michael Walzer’s invocation of a supreme emergency exemption to the principles of jus in bello. Walzer’s argument has been widely criticised for attaching more importance to communities than to individuals. I argue that his position normatively prioritises individuals, but is grounded in a holistic ontology. He valorises political community only because of its importance to the individuals who comprise it. On this view, each community forms a moral world and shapes individual identity. This gives individuals a highest order interest in being part of an autonomous community and makes threats to communal existence a form of moral disaster. The paper concludes that the debate about supreme emergency should engage with ontological questions, and that such engagement would mean problematising the study of what liberalism demands in international ethics.