The function of law and of constitutional law is to make determinate what we ought to do. And in constitutional law, that is true of both structural provisions and rights provisions. It is not the function of constitutions to establish our real moral rights. We possess those independently of the constitution, which cannot affect them. And all organs of government are bound morally if not legally by those rights. I have taken no position on the relative competence of legislatures and (...) courts to ascertain the content of real moral rights, and it is possible that the judiciary is well-equipped to be our wise Platonic guardians. However, if the game is interpretation, all that can be interpreted are authored rules, and what those rules mean can only be what their authors meant by them. Anything else is reauthoring—that is, creating new rules. There is no “living tree” constitutional interpretation. The only “living trees” are the judges. So you’d better hope that they are well cultivated. And you may conclude that a bit of pruning is in order. (shrink)

The highly publicized deaths of research participants Ellen Roche and Jesse Gelsinger are stark reminders that risk is inherent in medical research and while untoward outcomes are infrequent when compared to individual and societal benefits, injury and even death will happen. Who is responsible for the welfare of research subjects and what are they owed? Why were they put at risk to begin with? Are obligations, if any, to research subjects dependent on the type of study in which they participate, (...) in recognition that there may be personal benefit from participation in some studies?The issue of injury resulting from participation in research and answers to questions such as those just posed were last considered in depth nearly 20 years ago by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (shrink)

The highly publicized deaths of research participants Ellen Roche and Jesse Gelsinger are stark reminders that risk is inherent in medical research and while untoward outcomes are infrequent when compared to individual and societal benefits, injury and even death will happen. Who is responsible for the welfare of research subjects and what are they owed? Why were they put at risk to begin with? Are obligations, if any, to research subjects dependent on the type of study in which they participate, (...) in recognition that there may be personal benefit from participation in some studies?The issue of injury resulting from participation in research and answers to questions such as those just posed were last considered in depth nearly 20 years ago by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (shrink)

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is a significant problem in sport. It cheats clean athletes of their hard-earned rewards from perfecting their skills though dedication and hard work. It defrauds fans by substituting a distorted playing field for a true competition. Anti-doping agencies have been charged with enforcing drug policies, primarily through the use of drug testing programs. We propose that drug testing, while important, is not sufficient to achieve deterrence. Engaging the principles of perceptual deterrence and development of a (...) moral community of athletes can greatly enhance compliance with rules. (shrink)

As early as 1784, sharp-eyed engineers and scientists noted striking similarities between the dynamics of seagoing vessels and aerial vehicles. By the early twentieth century, naval engineers and scientists were developing and designing airplanes and dirigibles using empirical principles derived from naval architecture. Several key researchers in aerodynamics began their career as naval architects (David A. Taylor, William F. Durand and Jerome C. Hunsaker) and carried out their experiments in ship testing facilities. By the 1930s, however, the transfer of knowledge (...) was irrevocably reversed as empiricism gave way to more fundamental, physics-based research. The rapid evolution of complex aircraft systems and flight envelopes led to new theoretical developments in aerodynamics and maneuvering, which quickly found their way into naval ship design. The theoretical and experimental results for airfoils, rigid airships and fixed-wing aircraft developed by Ludwig Prandtl, Theodore von Kármán, Max M. Munk and Hilda M. Lyon were employed in the hydrodynamic development of surface ships and submarines. This paper examines how the ideas, concepts and data from one discipline influenced the other and explores the processes by which that knowledge was transferred between disciplines. (shrink)

In this two-volume set, Larry D. Barnett delves into the macrosociological sources of law concerned with society-important social activities in a structurally complex, democratically governed nation. Barnett explores why, when, and where particular proscriptions and prescriptions of law on key social activities arise, persist, and change. The first volume, Societal Agents in Law: A Macrosociological Approach, puts relevant doctrines of law into a macrosociological framework, uses the findings of quantitative research to formulate theorems that identify the impact of several (...) society-level agents on doctrines of law, and takes the reader through a number of case analyses. The second volume, Societal Agents in Law: Quantitative Research, reports original multivariate statistical studies of sociological determinants of law on specific types of key social activities. Taken together, the two volumes offer an alternative to the almost-total monopoly of theory and descriptive scholarship in the macrosociology of law, comparative law, and history of law, and underscore the value of a mixed empirical/theoretical approach. (shrink)

In this two-volume set, Larry D. Barnett delves into the macrosociological sources of law concerned with society-important social activities in a structurally complex, democratically governed nation. Barnett explores why, when, and where particular proscriptions and prescriptions of law on key social activities arise, persist, and change. The first volume, Societal Agents in Law: A Macrosociological Approach, puts relevant doctrines of law into a macrosociological framework, uses the findings of quantitative research to formulate theorems that identify the impact of several (...) society-level agents on doctrines of law, and takes the reader through a number of case analyses. The second volume, Societal Agents in Law: Quantitative Research, reports original multivariate statistical studies of sociological determinants of law on specific types of key social activities. Taken together, the two volumes offer an alternative to the almost-total monopoly of theory and descriptive scholarship in the macrosociology of law, comparative law, and history of law, and underscore the value of a mixed empirical/theoretical approach. (shrink)

In addition to being one of the greatest technical philosophers of the twentieth century, John Dewey was an educational innovator, a Progressive Era reformer, and one of America’s last great public intellectuals. Dewey’s insights into the problems of public education, immigration, the prospects for democratic government, and the relation of religious faith to science are as fresh today as when they were first published. His penetrating treatments of the nature and function of philosophy, the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of life, (...) and the role of inquiry in human experience are of increasing relevance at the turn of the 21st century. Based on the award-winning 37-volume critical edition of Dewey’s work, The Essential Dewey presents for the first time a collection of Dewey’s writings that is both manageable and comprehensive. The volume includes essays and book chapters that exhibit Dewey’s intellectual development over time; the selection represents his mature thinking on every major issue to which he turned his attention. Eleven part divisions cover: Dewey in Context; Reconstructing Philosophy; Evolutionary Naturalism; Pragmatic Metaphysics; Habit, Conduct, and Language; Meaning, Truth, and Inquiry; Valuation and Ethics; The Aims of Education; The Individual, the Community, and Democracy; Pragmatism and Culture: Science and Technology, Art and Religion; and Interpretations and Critiques. Taken as a whole, this collection provides unique access to Dewey’s understanding of the problems and prospects of human existence and of the philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

This review article surveys five recent texts in the field of Asian philosophy. The reviewer looks at the practicability of each work for the classroom, as well as for scholars in the field. Strong points of each text are noted, as well as the intricacies of the introductions to each text supplied by the editor or translator of the respective books.The texts reviewed have as their subject China and Confucianism, with the exception of one work on Zen, though the link (...) to China is present in consideration of the history of Zen. (shrink)

Thomas Nagel contends that the actual philosophical problem in the meaning of life is the independent world we live in, and only requires a self-transcendent being who glimpses an independent world. I argue that Nagel is mistaken to think that self-transcendence evokes the same anxiety for humans living in the world of Dante as Darwin. Nagel’s view from nowhere is rather a modem version of the world. Secondly, while I concede that there is a common anxiety felt by self-transcendence in (...) glimpsing an independent objective world, we also view that world through a set of beliefs that conditions how we see that world. (shrink)

In addition to being one of the greatest technical philosophers of the twentieth century, John Dewey was an educational innovator, a Progressive Era reformer, and one of America’s last great public intellectuals. Dewey’s insights into the problems of public education, immigration, the prospects for democratic government, and the relation of religious faith to science are as fresh today as when they were first published. His penetrating treatments of the nature and function of philosophy, the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of life, (...) and the role of inquiry in human experience are of increasing relevance at the turn of the 21st century. Based on the award-winning 37-volume critical edition of Dewey’s work, The Essential Dewey presents for the first time a collection of Dewey’s writings that is both manageable and comprehensive. The volume includes essays and book chapters that exhibit Dewey’s intellectual development over time; the selection represents his mature thinking on every major issue to which he turned his attention. Eleven part divisions cover: Dewey in Context; Reconstructing Philosophy; Evolutionary Naturalism; Pragmatic Metaphysics; Habit, Conduct, and Language; Meaning, Truth, and Inquiry; Valuation and Ethics; The Aims of Education; The Individual, the Community, and Democracy; Pragmatism and Culture: Science and Technology, Art and Religion; and Interpretations and Critiques. Taken as a whole, this collection provides unique access to Dewey’s understanding of the problems and prospects of human existence and of the philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

Dreaming in sleep must depend on the activity of the brain as does cognition and memory in wakefulness. Yet our understanding of the physiological subtleties of state differences may still be too primitive to guide theories adequately in these areas. One can state nonetheless unequivocally that the brain in REM is poorly equipped to practice for eventualities of wakefulness through dreaming, or for consolidating into memory the complex experiences of that state. [Hobson et al., Nielsen, Solms, Vertes & Eastman, Revonsuo].

Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a non-zero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusion for ethical theory and for the doomsday argument. In the infinite universe, we find that the doomsday argument applies only to (...) effects which change the average lifetime of all civilizations, and not those which affect our civilization alone. (shrink)