Promises Schmomises

In this piece, I argue that promises need not be kept just because they were made. This is not to say, however, that unwise, unhappy, and unfortunate promises do not generate obligations. When broken promises will result either in wrongful gains to promisors or wrongful losses to promisees, obligations of corrective justice will demand that such promises be kept if their breach cannot be fully repaired. Thus, when a broken promise will constitute a deliberate loss transfer for personal gain, the duty not to exact unjust enrichment (a wrongful gain) will require a promisor either to honor her promise or craft a means of ensuring that the promisee’s impoverishment is not traded for her enrichment. And when a broken promise will constitute the culpable imposition of a reliance-based injury on a nonculpable promisee (a wrongful loss), the duty to make others whole when one has purposefully, knowingly, or recklessly injured them will require one either to keep one’s promise or to fashion a remedy for its breach that ensures that the promisee is left no worse off than he would be had the promise not been made. This account explicitly parts ways with normative powers theories of promising. It places no weight at all on the raw fact that a promise has been made. Instead, it locates the gravamen of a promissory violation in the harm that is caused to a promisee who nonculpably relies upon and changes her position in anticipation of the prediction about the promisor’s future conduct that is embedded in his promise. Absent any adverse reliance on the part of a promisee, there is nothing that gives rise to an obligation of performance or repair on the part of the promisor. But this account is also to be distinguished from utilitarian theories that take promises to be instruments of wealth maximization that properly give way whenever the reason for honoring them speaks in favor of violating them. On my account, the balance of reasons for action that determines the morality of performance includes deontological rights and duties, agent-relative permissions, and Hohfeldian liberties. As I shall argue, even if one rightly concludes that one has no duty either to keep a promise or to craft a remedy for its breach, one must nevertheless remember that virtue requires one to be or become the kind of person who often goes beyond the call of duty. But the fact that virtue often requires us to do what we have no duty to do should not cause us to confuse its conditions with the conditions of right and wrong action. We have a duty to keep promises or to otherwise protect the reliance interests that they generate only when failing to do so will lead either to our own unjust enrichment or to others’ unjust injury. And this means that we have a duty to keep promises in far fewer circumstances than is commonly believed.     

备战打仗中的国际人道法规则运用

国际人道法的基本原则之一是区分对待战斗员和平民,以便在武装冲突中有效地对战争受难者进行保护,平衡"军事必要"与"人道需求"这一矛盾。从实践经验上看,我军在战争中往往守法做的比较好,而在对付敌人违法作战方面准备不足。在未来军事斗争中应利用国际人道法的相关知识,做到既严格遵守又灵活运用。具体做法包括:将遵守国际人道规则列入部队训练和演习内容;运用国际人道法合理进行目标选择与打击;做到正确、灵活地对待和使用保护性标志;灵活处置国际人道法的守势反用等。     

新媒体:社会风险放大的新型场域——基于技术与文化的视角

媒介天然具有"放大"潜能。相对传统媒体而言,新媒体技术及其创生文化所构建的新媒体环境,更是成了社会风险前所未有的放大场域。一方面,新媒体与风险扩散之间形成了高度的技术耦合,新媒体技术在风险扩散速度、扩散范围、感知渠道、体验效果、不确定性等方面大幅提升了风险放大的概率、加剧了其放大后果;另一方面,新媒体技术创生的文化进一步驱动了风险放大中的信息传播机制与社会反应机制,导致风险的非理性放大以及相关社会运动的激化,使得风险又衍生出其他更多的社会风险。     

浅谈旅游学的几个基础问题

按照旅游学的理论以及构成来讲,旅游学是一门交叉性较强的科学;按照其作用来讲,旅游学以软科学的形式存在。旅游学以旅游系统为研究对象,表现出综合性、交叉性等特点。探讨旅游学的有关基础理论问题,有助于学科的进步和发展。     

Hidden Income and Occupational Background: evidence from Guangzhou

Using a unique dataset based on a survey conducted by the Guangzhou Land Resources and Housing Administrative Bureau from November 2009 to January 2010, this article examines the sources and distribution of the hidden income of residents from different occupational backgrounds, taking into consideration their explicit income and other socio-economic characteristics. The results show that government officials not only had the highest but also the most stable hidden income, followed by employees in state-owned enterprises and employees in colleges or research institutions. Among government officials, those holding higher-level positions possessed more hidden income than those in lower-level positions. These findings have implications for China's labour market, taxation and resource allocation, and need to be taken into consideration in future economic and political policy designs and implementations.     

连接未来:大学的应有之义

大学如何连接一个美好的未来给他们的国家以及他们的学子,这是大学的应有之义.但是目前我国的大学过于关注当下,没有放眼未来.这种状况不仅影响培养质量,而且也是对大学社会责任的弱化.本文指出连接未来应是大学存在的价值所在,要连接未来首先需要植根于人的存在的意义.文中还指出知识的逻辑在改变,教育方式也应该相应地改变.为帮助学生建立复杂问题的视野和善于关联(创新能力的关键),本文提出了几种关联的方式.