Wenhao Xu

In elder care, “safety” is frequently accorded overriding moral priority. As a result, restrictive measures introduced under the banner of risk prevention are readily treated as “reasonable protection,” while, under the guise of care, they can encroach on older persons’ freedom, privacy, and dignity. The expansion of digital care technologies reinforces logics of continuous monitoring and alerting, thereby intensifying this tension. Existing debates often remain confined to an “autonomy versus beneficence” framing or to compliance-oriented privacy governance, and thus struggle to specify clear boundary conditions. Grounded in care ethics and relational autonomy, this article conceptualizes such practices as “benevolent coercion” and develops a Relational Legitimacy Framework (RLF). The RLF treats restrictive measures as normative actions that carry a burden of justification and requires that they meet, simultaneously, risk-grounded necessity and proportionality; relationally defined, minimally intrusive alternatives; relational procedural legitimacy, including the identification of false consent and the possibility of withdrawal; and non-negotiable baseline protections for dignity and privacy. It further emphasizes time-limited reassessment and viable exit mechanisms. The Chinese context serves as a setting in which underlying mechanisms become especially visible, allowing assessment of the risk that key conditions may fail in practice. This article contributes a reusable normative braking system for safety-based justifications and offers a theoretical foundation and practical guidance for nurses and institutions to integrate restrictive measures into actionable ethical decision-making procedures and governance rules.

This paper proposes a global metaphysical framework—the Hierarchical Dimension Philosophical Theory System—which reconstructs the structure of reality through four fundamental dimensions: time, space, matter, and spirit. These four dimensions form an integrated Four-Dimensional Complex, whose hierarchical and interactive relations are modeled through a Conical Relationship Theory, revealing an epistemic hierarchy that structures both cognition and experience. The system consists of three components: 1. Hierarchical Dimension Framework (Ontology) – Outlines the layered ontological structure of the world. 2. Conical Relationship Theory (Epistemology) – Models the relationships between hierarchical dimensions and their interdependencies. 3. Three-Level Methodology (Methodology) – Applies the structural and epistemic insights to real-world problems. The sixth and highest ontological level, referred to as the "Love" level, is composed of four internal dimensions: Continuation, Expansion, Justice, and Happiness (CEJH), which function as teleological coordinates for action, value, and meaning. This theory aims to unify metaphysical insight with practical guidance through a systematic, multi-level philosophical approach.