8 Culture, Evil, and Horror

A bstract .   This chapter develops a concept of aesthetic and existential horror and suggests its importance for understanding modern and postmodern culture. It makes three distinct claims. First, the experience of horror signifies a breakdown in the symbolic categories and valuations of a culture. Second, this experience has ontological significance because in horror the human is exposed to the naked fact of being. This latter point is derived from Heidegger's comments on anxiety and Emmanuel Levinas's notion of the " il y a " or "there is." A third claim follows from these two, namely, that horror is distinct from evil. Evil is defined within a cultural matrix; horror is the undefined other of a culture. Evil represents the negation of being; horror shows the sickening presence of being as being. The essay concludes with a reflection on the possibility of a postmodern ethics that takes responsibility for the "horrors of being" generated by globalization.     

美军武器装备质量管理机制研究

武器装备质量是武器装备形成战斗力的关键要素。本文主要从竞争机制、监督机制、评价机制、激励机制四个方面对美军武器装备质量管理机制的主要内容作了分析,以期对我军武器装备质量建设有所启发和借鉴。     

3. Money, Credit, and Crisis

The financial crisis of 2008–2009 has antecedents in earlier crises, including the Great Depression. In order to understand how the current crisis arose, we must review the most fundamental principles of banking. Doing that, we find that the main service performed by banks is the creation of liquidity, a collective good that can be destroyed by the behavior of individual financial institutions. The key element in creating liquidity is the monetization of various types of collateral. When collateral takes the form of land or capital that turns over slowly, banks lose liquidity. That is why major banking crises have frequently been associated with real estate lending. The best way to restore health to the financial system is by restoring the principles of the "real bills" doctrine that requires loans to be self-liquidating.     

11 A Rediscovery of Heaven-and-Human Oneness

A bstract .   The history of Chinese intellectual thought shows a constant and continuous probing into the chiasmatic encounters between tian (heaven or nature) and ren (humankind). This is conducive, in turn, to a core conception of tian ren heyi (heaven-and-human oneness) that largely embodies the general ethos or Geist of Chinese philosophy. Owing to its functional indication and dynamic character, the polysemy of the conception is apt to be extended along with the passage of time and according to the current situation or sociocultural context. At the present day, there is a tendency to rediscover the relevance of "heaven-and-human oneness" by reading new and even modern messages into the old conception. This has become an open-ended activity, inviting and involving a second reflection, transcultural exposition, and even creative transformation due to its hidden universality for the common good. This chapter attempts to look into the essential bearings of this "heaven-and-human oneness" concept employed as a Dao ( Tao or Way) to deal with the interaction between nature and humanity. It also explores the complex history of the concept, with a particular reference to Li Zehou's recent reinterpretation as well as my own personal understanding. Some contemporary pragmatic implications of the concept are also examined with particular reference to eco-environmental concerns.     

2. A New Framework for Macroeconomics

Most forms of macroeconomics today, whether Keynesian or monetarist, presuppose that problems of economic instability can be treated as errors in financial management. Neither fiscal nor monetary policy recognizes the existence of systemic faults in the real economy that result in overinvestment in durable capital that turns over slowly, in contrast to forms of capital that interact more frequently with land and labor. Only by removing serious distortions in microeconomic relations can macroeconomic problems be resolved. The current global economic crisis exemplifies the limitations of policies that ignore distortions in the rate of turnover of investment capital.     

世间已无霍英东

中国工商界的时代特征,承霍英东先生这一代之后,而迥异于前者时间流驶,工商界一代有一代之传奇,而一代过后,该种传奇势难重演。工商业巨子霍英东先生逝世,他的传奇经历集聚了不断变迁的时代印记。今天的中国商界,信奉管理和资本运作,可以说是二十多年市场化的经霜历雨之后,与国际潮流接轨的一种进步现象。而始终不变的是,商人倚重“社会关系”的经营,自古至今,并无二致;只是“社会关系”的内容因时而异罢了。回望霍英东、张瑞敏、柳传志、任正非等商界翘楚,他们在1984年的境遇,呈现出一种成就商界基业的时代演变轨迹。张瑞敏在今日商界,代表…     

1. Globalization and Violence: The Challenge to Ethics

Despite its many benefits, globalization has proven to harbor a good deal of violence. This is not only a matter of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction inaugurated by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but includes many forms of indirect or “structural violence” resulting from the routine of economic and political institutions on the global scale. In this essay, the multifaceted phenomena of violence are approached from the standpoint of ethics. The prevailing political thinking associated with “realism” fails to address the problems of militarism and of hegemonic unilateralism. In contrast, many philosophers are critically rethinking the problem of global violence from different ethical perspectives. Despite sharing similar concerns, philosophers nevertheless differ over the role of philosophical reflection and the potentials of reason. These differences appear in two contrasting approaches associated with postmodern philosophy and discourse ethics. In the analysis of discourse ethics, attention is paid to Karl‐Otto Apel's attempt of philosophically grounding a macroethics of planetary co‐responsibility. At the heart of the essay is the analysis of the problem of violence, including terrorism, by Jürgen Habermas, who explains the phenomenon of violence in terms of the theory of communicative action as the breakdown of communication. Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the notion of “terrorism” also is analyzed. According to the principle of discourse ethics, all conflicts between human beings ought to be settled in a way free of violence, through discourses and negotiations. These philosophers conclude that the reliance on force does not solve social and global problems, including those that are the source of violence. The only viable alternative is the “dialogical” multilateral relations of peaceful coexistence and cooperation among the nations for solving social and global problems. They emphasize the necessity of strengthening the international rule of law and institutions, such as a reformed United Nations.     

1 From a State of War to Perpetual Peace

A bstract .   This essay examines current debates in political philosophy regarding the problems of war and peace and of human rights protection. Two contrasting approaches are analyzed: one represented by "democratic peace" theories, and the other by the movement for a cosmopolitan order. At the heart of both approaches are conflicting interpretations of Kant's political philosophy, especially his project of "perpetual peace." An analysis of M. Doyle's recent conception of "liberal democratic peace" shows the flaws in his justification of the tendency of liberal states to be war-prone toward nonliberal states. Alternatively, the development of Kant's ideas in the theories of "discourse ethics" (K. O. Apel and J. Habermas) and "cosmopolitan democracy" confirms the relevance of Kant's cosmopolitan ideal to current discussions about peace and human rights. The analysis also affirms that the true solution to the problems of securing peace and protecting human rights can only be achieved by peaceful means, based on international law with the United Nations as its legitimate political representation.     

7. Relevant Hellenic Factors Favoring Effective Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence

The paper presents and analyzes the war/peace issue in the Hellenic tradition and its relevance to the contemporary world. It is focused on some of the Hellenic factors that were successfully used in antiquity to overcome conflicts and war and to achieve a harmoniously existing world. The factors that can be used as paradigmatic cases are the conceptions of divine kosmos and of polis ; effective dialogue; the education of rulers and of citizens so as to be able to govern themselves and use their power in order to preserve civilization for posterity and to sustain their values, to oppose stasis and to embrace homonoia , to overcome conflicts and to preserve peace in more than two hundred city-states. In addition, I argue that the long and rich Hellenic experience is relevant to our epoch in the sense that it is universally known for its anti-polemic policy and its peace movements. Conceptions such as kosmos and organismic polis, the practice of laws and of homonoia , or friendship, can contribute to the solution of our local and world problems and the prevention of contemporary violence, terrorism, and wars. They can be used by future generations as a model of how to prevent the repetition of another holocaust, of any extermination of human beings by human beings (Dachau), or of any war tragedies (bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). They show, above all, how humanity can achieve a lasting world peace.     

12. Transculture: A Broad Way Between Globalism and Multiculturalism

This paper develops a concept of transculture as a model of cultural development that differs from both leveling globalism and isolating pluralism. While culture frees humans from the material dependencies of nature, it also creates new, symbolic dependencies—on customs, traditions, conventions, which a person receives as a member of a certain group and ethnos. Among the many freedoms proclaimed as rights of the individual, there emerges yet another freedom—from one's own culture, in which one was born and educated. Transculture is viewed as the next level of liberation, this time from the "prison house of language," from unconscious predispositions and prejudices of the "native," naturalized cultures. The case of the Japanese poet Araki Yasusada (1903–1972), a survivor of Hiroshima, demonstrates how transcultural creativity, though cast in the form of a literary hoax, can produce an internationally recognized achievement. Transculturalism is especially needed in world politics, where the factor of fixed cultural identity based on race, ethnos, religion, or ideological commitments turned out to be a source of conflict and violence. This paper argues that the categories of opposition and identity do not preclude the significance of the third category, which is difference. The differences complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong, not because we are similar but because we are different. The transcultural perspective opens a possibility for globalization not as homogenization but, rather, as further differentiation of cultures and their "dissemination" into transcultural individuals, liberating themselves from their dependence from their native cultures. The global society can be viewed as the space of diversity of free individuals rather than that of fixed groups and cultures. It is an alternative to the clash of civilizations and a hope for lasting peace.     

1. The Role of Land Markets in Economic Crises

It is widely recognized that the economic crisis of 2009 was caused by unsound lending for real estate. Largely ignored, however, is that this contraction was easily predicted on the basis of a well-established pattern of land speculation, premature subdivision, and excessive building on marginal land that recurs approximately once every 18 years. Capital locked up in projects that are started during a land bubble is effectively lost during the downturn, leaving the nation without sufficient capital to finance ordinary business operations during the recovery period. The best instrument for avoiding this boom-bust cycle is the property tax and, more specifically, the portion that falls on land. We explore here the ways in which the property tax influences the intensity, timing, and location of development. We also examine why frequent and accurate assessment are essential to make the property tax an effective method of preventing speculative real estate bubbles.     

3 Rethinking Global Justice from the Perspective of All Living Nature and What Difference it Makes

A bstract .   I begin this chapter with an account of what is deserved in human ethics, an ethics that assumes without argument that only humans, or rational agents, count morally. I then take up the question of whether nonhuman living beings are also deserving, and I answer it in the affirmative. Having established that all individual living beings, as well as ecosystems, are deserving, I go on to establish what it is that they deserve and then compare the requirements of global justice when only humans are taken into account with the requirements of global justice when all living beings are taken into account. I argue that the more adequate global justice that takes into account all living beings imposes some additional obligations on us that are absent from a less defensible human-centered global justice, but not as many as one might initially think.     

2 Discourse Ethics, Democracy, and International Law: Toward a Globalization of Practical Reason

A bstract .   This paper deals with the foundational "architectonics" (Kantian) at the ground of the internal relation between the three concepts raised in the title. First, I provide a short introduction into the ultimate foundation of practical philosophy by the transcendental-pragmatic conception of discourse ethics . Then, I discuss the foundational relation between discourse ethics , positive law , and democracy as a constitutional state of law . Finally, I explore the foundational relation between human rights as part of universal law, the democratic state of law, and international law or jus gentium . By taking issue with Kant, Habermas, and Rawls, I try to show that a rational foundation of ethics, as well as a rational approach to the traditional problems of international law, is only possible through a critical transformation of Kant's approach via a transcendental-pragmatic conception of discourse ethics.     

8. The Grounding of Forgiveness: Martha Nussbaum on Compassion and Mercy

Violence came to define the twentieth century. We live in fear that an even more extreme violence will characterize the twenty‐first century. The city of Hiroshima was the victim of the greatest single stroke of violence in the history of humanity. Yet it managed to arise, Phoenix‐like, as a city devoted to peace in the aftermath of nuclear horror. How was this extraordinary forgiveness possible? Is it possible that it was born out of a compassion for the victims of nuclear holocaust that extended beyond its immediate borders? In several works, but most notably in Upheavals of Thought, Martha Nussbaum has analyzed the conditions for the occurrence of compassion. She has also subjected her largely Aristotelian analysis of compassion to a Stoic‐inspired critique. This paper will reconstruct Nussbaum's analysis, critique, and defense of compassion. I will then extend Nussbaum's analysis to argue how a forgiveness rooted in compassion, rather than mercy, might be possible. The city of Hiroshima's dedication to worldwide peace in the aftermath of nuclear horror is used to illustrate a compassion‐based forgiveness.     

Hermeneutics and the Heidegger = Schumpeter Theses

This paper is a part of an attempt to develop an economic philosophy of ontology based on the Continental tradition of hermeneutics. Ontology explores the meanings of entities as the objects of knowledge to posit the orientation of knowledge. Heidegger developed hermeneutical ontology, focusing on the self-understanding of Dasein (human beings), which consists of the "projection" of its possibilities into the future and the "thrownness" of it into the restrictions by the past history. Dealing explicitly with the pre-structure of knowledge, hermeneutics opens the perspective of knowledge much broader than permitted by the analytical tradition of philosophy. It is the contention of this paper that Schumpeter from the Austrian subjectivist circle could cope with this approach in social science by the use of the concepts of "innovation and tradition" or "creation and routine." The paper discusses the relationship between Heidegger and Schumpeter on various philosophical issues and derives what might be called the Heidegger = Schumpeter theses.     

2. The Democratic Peace Myth: From Hiroshima to Baghdad

This paper examines the ideal of the democratic peace and the recent misuse of this ideal in the war on terrorism. It argues against the idea that aggressive military force can be employed to bring about the ideal of the democratic peace. By looking at John Stuart Mill's utilitarian justification of benevolent despotism for "barbarians," it examines how idealism can lead to a defense of aggressive intervention. And it considers how idealistic zeal can lead to violations of just war principles, as in the case of Hiroshima. It concludes by arguing that Kant's deontological approach is better. Kant provides us with a reason to hope that as democracy spreads, peace will spread as well. But Kant also prohibits us from using force to actualize this ideal.     

10 The Subject of Freedom at the End of History: Socialism Beyond Humanism

A bstract .   The postmodernist turn in theory left the status of humanism in some doubt. This chapter argues that a recuperation of a specifically socialist humanism is both possible and desirable, but only by overcoming the anthropocentrism of radical humanism. Renaissance and Enlightenment conceptions of the subject were rooted in an untenable dichotomy between the human and the animal, in ways that vitiated the idea and ideal of universal freedom. By conflating subjectivity as such with human subjectivity, humanism created a diremption in the world that placed the knower (human consciousness) on one side, and the merely known (objectified Nature) on the other. Marxism and socialist humanism reproduced this error in ways that have undermined the socialist vision of universal emancipation, misconstrued the nature of the subject, and overlooked the significance of human domination of other animals. The author advocates a new approach, what he calls metahumanism , to affirm a "two-sided" freedom in which the liberation of other animals from human oppression, and the emancipation of ourselves as animals—that is, the restoration of the sensual dimension of existence, free sexual expression, and valorization of the labor and love of the body—would become central features of a new movement for civil and cultural reform.