Men and manners: Kantian humanism,rhetoric and the history of ethics

Modern humanist ethics (more Kantian than is sometimes thought) is driven by a will-to-perfection in the form of ideals of self-transcendence. This perfectionism entails a (would-be) exclusion or marginalisation of certain elements of ‘pre-Enlightenment’ ethical cultures bearing on rhetoric, manners and self-empowerment. This essay provides a set of conceptual-historical arguments preliminary to reinserting these disparaged elements into the forefront of a progressive ethos which, it is claimed, cannot afford to be exclusively dependent on an amalgam of Enlightenment and Romantic ideals. Ethics is irreducible to the realm of ideal and values, and there are other sorts.     

谈性贿赂立法

在对我国性贿赂行为的普遍性及其危害性分析之后,对我国设立性贿赂犯罪的刑法学理论基础进行论述,提出在中国现行刑法典中增设性贿赂的相关条款,以更好地保障国家工作人员职务的廉洁性。     

用判别函数对一块颅骨性别差异的研究

作者对东北汉族60例(男、女各30例)单块颅骨(上颌骨、额骨、枕骨和顶骨)的25项指标进行测量,应用判别分析方法对每块颅骨进行分析,发现了某些性别差异非常显著的指标,并获得了12个判别式。结果表明:用单个颅骨判别性别存在着明显的差异,其中额骨最好,其判别率达93.3％,与国外的研究比较,本文判別率高,具有实用性。     

"Dangerous" Sexual Consciousness: A Reflection on the Sex Education for Disabled Institutionalized Children in China

This ethnographic study investigates how childcare workers view and react to behaviors of disabled institutionalized children which they consider sexual in a Chinese orphanage. Presuming them primarily as “asexual” or “sexually immature” subjects based on a biomedical understanding of disability and childhood, the childcare workers are anxious to find signs of sexual consciousness in some of these children. Labelled as either “dangerous” or “abnormal”, the sexually conscious candidates are subject to physical punishment and denied access to sex information. In spite of this, they continue to have sexual feelings and engage in sexual behaviors, and some may even develop specific strategies to fulfill their own needs. The interactions between childcare workers and disabled children exemplify the tensions between a disapproving environment for sexual and the sexual agency of disabled people in China. The findings may have wide policy implications for the state, as well as organizations of children’s rights and disability rights, to promote ideas and measures that enable disabled institutionalized children to develop into sexually expressive and fulfilled persons.     

性道德与性法律规范的历史演变

性道德规范和性犯罪规范的历史演变表明:(1)男女的生理性差异是性规范的形成和演变的基础。乱伦一直是人类社会严厉禁止的具有本能特点的禁忌;男女性规范不平等的本初起源是男女生理的差异,而工业革命后的性规范的巨大变化不妨看作是人类尤其是女性在性本能方面的一种自然回归。(2)物质生活条件在这种演变过程中起着决定作用。私有制出现后,正是男女之间在社会物质财富占有上的不平等导致了男人性需求的不合理膨胀。相反,女人在性行为、性心理则走向了萎缩和压抑。(3)权力塑造了人们的灵魂,使有关性的思想意识根深蒂固。权力把外在的物质生活条件的因素变成了灵魂深处的精神枷锁。     

也论组织乞讨罪

设立组织乞讨罪一方面考虑到维护社会治安秩序和未成年人、残疾人合法权益的重要性,另一方面是为了与有关规定相衔接.该罪的犯罪客体是残疾人和未成年人的意志自由,在客观方面表现为以暴力、胁迫为手段组织乞讨,主观方面是故意,而且不需具备牟利的目的.本罪的设立并不一定能有效地实现保护残疾人和未成年人身心健康的目的.     

Gender Based Violence: Correlates of Physical and Sexual Wife Abuse in Kenya

This study explored factors associated with physical and sexual wife abuse on a sample of 4,876 married women aged 15–49 years in the 2003 Kenya Demographic Health Survey. Results indicate that 40% of married women reported at least one type of violence; 36% were physical and 13% were sexual. Multivariate analysis showed that living in poorer households, being Christian, being in a polygamous marriage, having a husband who drinks alcohol, and being in sales, agricultural, or unskilled jobs significantly increased the wife’s risk of physical and sexual abuse. Wife’s education had significant effect on both physical and sexual abuse, but the relationships were not linear. Wife’s age and number of children were significantly associated only with physical abuse; husband’s education had a marginal but significant effect only on sexual abuse. Research implications are discussed.     

The Case for a Rational Reconstruction of Consent in Criminal Law

This article argues for consistency in criminal law and the need for 'rational reconstruction' of the law where necessary to achieve this. It focuses Parliament's failure to respect the need for consistency by passing a statutory definition of consent in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which appears to apply only to sexual offences. As a result, the law on consent risks being a patchwork of statute and ad hoc case law, without any overarching principle to deal with new situations and different offences. The consequent lack of certainty, accessibility, predictability and fairness is compared to the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights. The statutory definition of consent in the context of the sexual offences is assessed critically as a model which could be used in offences against the person and property offences. The article concludes that until Parliament responds to the need for certainty and consistency by legislating on consent, there can be no rational reconstruction of consent under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.     

Discipline, Punishment And The Homosexual In Law

This article examines the creation and legacy of the 1957 Wolfenden Report, arguing that current trends to simplistically address the Report, along with a long standing academic focus on Foucault and the nineteenth century, have disregarded the productive and revolutionary nature of its recommendations enacted in the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Contrary to the common emphasis placed on Victorian medical discourse, and the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde, it was the Wolfenden Report and the twentieth century that created the homosexual identity in law – an identity created not with a view to freedom, as is regularly assumed, but with the objective of the control of recalcitrant bodies in the forms of men's homosexual sex, and women's prostitution. Dr.Kate Gleeson is Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Thanks to Helen Pringle for the heads-up on Discipline and Punish. And thanks to Aleardo Zanghellini for helping me to clarify this argument.