This paper focuses on Information Warfare—the warfare characterised by the use of information and communication technologies. This is a fast growing phenomenon, which poses a number of issues ranging from the military use of such technologies to its political and ethical implications. The paper presents a conceptual analysis of this phenomenon with the goal of investigating its nature. Such an analysis is deemed to be necessary in order to lay the groundwork for future investigations into this topic, addressing the ethical (...) problems engendered by this kind of warfare. The conceptual analysis is developed in three parts. First, it delineates the relation between Information Warfare and the Information revolution. It then focuses attention on the effects that the diffusion of this phenomenon has on the concepts of war. On the basis of this analysis, a definition of Information Warfare is provided as a phenomenon not necessarily sanguinary and violent, and rather transversal concerning the environment in which it is waged, the way it is waged and the ontological and social status of its agents. The paper concludes by taking into consideration the Just War Theory and the problems arising from its application to the case of Information Warfare. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is an urgent need for an international doctrine for cyberspace skirmishes before they escalate into conventional warfare.

This essay contends that individual liberty, understood as the permissibility of making choices about one’s own health care in support of one’s own good and the good of one’s family utilizing private resources, is central to the moral foundations of a health care system. Such individual freedoms are important not only because they often support more efficient and effective health care services, but because they permit individuals to fulfill important moral duties. A comparative study of the health care systems in (...) Hong Kong and mainland China is utilized to illustrate the conceptual and moral concerns at stake. Both regions have implemented two-tier health care systems with a public tier of basic health care services together with a second tier of privately purchased health care. As we document, Hong Kong permits patients and doctors significantly greater opportunities to choose private health care of typically higher medical quality than their mainland counterparts. As a result, individuals are able to obtain higher quality health care while also fulfilling important moral duties for themselves and their families. In this sense, Hong Kong’s health care system is morally superior to mainland China’s. In each case, Confucianism’s concerns regarding equality are partly satisfied through the provision of public health care services on the basic tier, while appropriate use of private resources in support of oneself and one’s family is permissibly exercised on the private tier. Although it is true that inequalities in health care access and outcome are inevitable within a system that permits such individual freedoms, we argue that such inequalities are morally justifiable in terms of Confucian ethical thought. (shrink)

China's stunning growth rates have corresponded with the rise of “state capitalism.” Since the mid-2000s, China's political economy has stabilized around a model where most sectors are marketized and increasingly integrated with the global economy; yet strategic industries remain firmly in the grasp of an elite empire of state-owned enterprises. What are the implications of state capitalism for industrial competitiveness, corporate governance, government-business relations, and domestic welfare? How does China's model of state capitalism compare with other examples of state-directed development (...) in late industrializing countries? As China enters a phase of more modest growth, it is especially timely to understand how its institutions have adapted to new challenges and party-state priorities. In this volume, leading scholars of China's economy, politics, history, and society explore these compelling issues. (shrink)