The health care needs of rural populations often differ from those of their urban counterparts. And the ethical dilemmas that caregivers face are distinctively shaped in rural settings, not only by resource constraints, but by the nature of life in small, close-knit communities as well.

The country's leading libertarian scholar sets forth the essential principles for a legal system that best balances individual liberty versus the common good.

This book is dedicated to a classic presentation of the theory of computable functions in the context of the foundations of mathematics. Part I motivates the study of computability with discussions and readings about the crisis in the foundations of mathematics in the early 20th century, while presenting the basic ideas of whole number, function, proof, and real number. Part II starts with readings from Turing and Post leading to the formal theory of recursive functions. Part III presents sufficient formal (...) logic to give a full development of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Part IV considers the significance of the technical work with a discussion of Church's Thesis and readings on the foundations of mathematics. This new edition contains the timeline "Computability and Undecidability" as well as the essay "On mathematics". (shrink)

Without question, the libertarian vision that envisions the use of state power to control force and fraud as a proper governmental function is one piece of any comprehensive political theory. But the hard-line libertarian goes astray in finding this the sole function of government or in thinking that the maintenance of order is possible without the imposition of taxes. Rather, the case for taxation rests on the familiar view that state coercion is sometimes necessary to overcome coordination problems. The justification (...) for a minimal system of taxation therefore is that it provides more in benefits for the individuals taxed than they lose in revenue. Stressing the benefit shows the mistake in Nozick’s famous observation that taxation is “on a par” with forced labor. And the proper understanding of the logic of taxation shows the defects in the series of steps in demoktesis—or “ownership of the people, by the people, and for the people”—that Nozick offers to show how difficult it is to draw any clear line between taxation and slavery. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick seeks to demonstrate that principles of justice in acquisition and transfer can be applied to justify the minimal state, and no state greater than the minimal state. That approach fails to acknowledge the critical role that forced exchanges play in overcoming a range of public goods and coordination problems. These ends are accomplished by taking property for which the owner is compensated in cash or in kind in an amount that leaves him better (...) off (by his own lights) than before the transaction. Forced exchanges use coercion to form the state, but the just compensation requirement guards against redistribution state imposed redistribution for collateral purposes. Once these forced exchanges are allowed to form a state, then they may be used thereafter to justify the powers of taxation and eminent domain used to support infrastructure (roads, sewers, public utilities) that neither the minimal state nor private markets can supply. Footnotesa I have benefited from comments at the workshop at the Social Sciences Division of the California Institute of Technology. My thanks to Justin Herring and Eric Murphy, The University of Chicago Law School, for their usual capable research assistance. (shrink)

John Donne's song was hardly written in the tradition of political philosophy, but it has a good deal to say about the theme of luck, both good and bad, which I want to address. There is no doubt but that bad luck has bad consequences for the persons who suffer from it. If there were a costless way in which the consequences of bad luck could be spread across everyone in society at large, without increasing the risk of its occurrence, (...) then most of us would pronounce ourselves better off for the change. In this sense it can be said, for example, that there is a utilitarian grounding for a moral obligation to care and provide for those persons who suffer the fortunes of bad luck. For the sake of argument I do not wish to contest this particular starting point, although there are many who would. Instead, I want to ask the question of whether this moral obligation should be converted into a legal obligation, backed by public force. The dominant answer to that question today is yes. Even those who think that markets should determine decisions on production find that the state has a proper role to reduce the adverse consequences of bad luck. My cast of mind is more skeptical. In life, or, in this instance, politics, “come bad chance, and we do join to it our strength.” In general the effort to use coercion to counter the adverse effects of luck tends only to make matters worse. (shrink)

The most popular method of incorporating time into a formal logic is based on the work of Arthur Prior. It treats tenses as operators on sentences. In this essay I show a serious problem with that approach, a confusion of scheme versus proposition, which makes any system built in that way incoherent. I will compare how other formal logics deal with the scheme versus proposition distinction and find that only for formal modal logics does the same problem arise. I then (...) compare Prior’s approach to other ways of taking time into account in formal logics. (shrink)

John Donne's song was hardly written in the tradition of political philosophy, but it has a good deal to say about the theme of luck, both good and bad, which I want to address. There is no doubt but that bad luck has bad consequences for the persons who suffer from it. If there were a costless way in which the consequences of bad luck could be spread across everyone in society at large, without increasing the risk of its occurrence, (...) then most of us would pronounce ourselves better off for the change. In this sense it can be said, for example, that there is a utilitarian grounding for a moral obligation to care and provide for those persons who suffer the fortunes of bad luck. For the sake of argument I do not wish to contest this particular starting point, although there are many who would. Instead, I want to ask the question of whether this moral obligation should be converted into a legal obligation, backed by public force. The dominant answer to that question today is yes. Even those who think that markets should determine decisions on production find that the state has a proper role to reduce the adverse consequences of bad luck. My cast of mind is more skeptical. In life, or, in this instance, politics, “come bad chance, and we do join to it our strength.” In general the effort to use coercion to counter the adverse effects of luck tends only to make matters worse. (shrink)

The inequalities of wealth and fortune form a central part of the human condition, and these over time have been a constant source of social unease. Whether they should be praised and preserved or endured or corrected is an issue that produces uniform discord. One source of this difficulty in analysis stems from the possible ways in which these persistent inequalities arise. It is easy to condemn any differences in wealth created by the victor's expropriation of the vanquished's honest toil. (...) It is far more difficult to condemn those identical differences when they are attributable to the thrift and foresight of the successful relative to the laziness or self-destructiveness of the impoverished. Furthermore, most find it morally ambiguous how best to respond to differences between persons that are the result of luck or chance, such that they do not reflect positively or negatively on either the character of those who have done well or those who have done poorly. (shrink)

In Simple Rules for a Complex World, I outlined a set of legal rules that facilitate just and efficient social interactions among individuals. Frederick Schauer's critique of my book ignores the specific implications of my system in favor of a general critique of simplicity that overlooks the dangers to liberty when complex rules confer vast discretion on public figures. He also does not refer to the nonlibertarian features of my system that allow for overcoming holdout positions. These “take and pay” (...) rules explain how a system broadly protective of private property responds to well‐known two‐person (Able‐Infirm) hypothetical of the sort advanced by G. A. Cohen, which are designed to show how claims of self‐ownership lend strong support to egalitarian outcomes. (shrink)

Most forms of egalitarian theory impose on government to redress the inequalities of fortune that result from bad luck. This Article takes issue with the various forms of this large claim, and argues that decentralized forms of assistance are likely in the long run to do better by the very standards by which egalitarians justify their own program. The alleviation of poverty depends in the first instance on increases in wealth that can only come through private innovation and technological advances. (...) These have in fact produced major improvements in overall well-being, with disproportionate advances for the poor. But if one starts with Dworkin’s unsustainable distinction between option and brute luck, or Nussbaum and Sen’s capability theory, then no egalitarian theory can deliver on the promise to level differences in wealth without seriously compromising overall levels of social welfare. By expanding the scope of government regulation, these proposals open the door to selfish political forces whose political clout ensures that ill-conceived programs, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, frustrate the very goals they hope to achieve. State intervention to redistribute resources should be understood as a last resort for dealing with problems of ill fortune. (shrink)

Definite referring expressions have been studied almost exclusively with respect to their ability to uniquely identify objects. Based on examples of NPs with the drawn from naturally occurring texts, I argue that definite referring expressions serve other functions, as well — they indicate the prominence of a referent, the referent's status as a role function or the viewpoint from which the referent is presented. All of this information contributes to the construction of discourse referents and is therefore part of the (...) speech act of referring. In general, speakers do not talk about objects in a neutral fashion, but rather attempt to induce addressees to accept them into the discourse under different guises. Thus, the notion of a successful reference cannot be restricted to cases in which an object is uniquely identified. (shrink)

This is a review of Hans Moravec''s book, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. This review raises three categories of questions relating to Moravec''s vision of the future. First, there are the ethical and social implications issues implicit in robotics research. Second, there are the soul issues, which especially relate to the prospect of the demoralization of human beings. Third, there is the issue as to whether a robot could ever be a sentient being.

Toward a New Socialism offers a critical analysis of capitalism's failings and the imminent need for socialism as an alternative form of government. Dr. Richard Schmitt joins with Dr. Anatole Anton to compile a volume of essays exploring the benefits and consequences of a socialist system as an avenue of increased human solidarity and ethical principle.

The predictive inadequacy of the social sciences is well documented, and philosophers have sought to diagnose it. This paper examines Brian Epstein’s recent diagnosis. He argues that the social sciences treat the social world as entirely composed of individual people. Instead, social scientists should recognize that material, non-individualistic entities determine the social world, as well. First, I argue that Epstein’s argument both begs the question against his opponents and is not sufficiently charitable. Second, I present doubts that his (...) proposal will improve predictive success for the social sciences, which I support with Edith Penrose’s resource-based theory of the firm. (shrink)

Taking Isaac Newton at his own word, historians have long agreed that the decade of the 1660s, when Newton was a young man in his twenties, was the critical period in his scientific career. In the years 1665 and 1666, he has told us, he hit on the ideas of cosmic gravitation, the composition of white light, and the fluxional calculus. The elaboration of these basic ideas constituted his scientific achievement. Nevertheless, the decade of the 1660s has remained a virtual (...) blank in our knowledge of Newton. It need not remain so always. His papers contain a wealth of manuscripts from his undergraduate years and the period immediately following. The first volume of his mathematical papers, which will soon be published, will demonstrate how extensive the information on his early mathematical development is. The development of his non-mathematical studies, especially of what I shall call his scientific studies to distinguish them from the mathematical, can be followed as well—in his reading notes, in his notebooks, above all in the passage in his philosophical notebook labelled Quaestiones quaedam Philosophicae. In this passage we see emerging into consciousness for the first time the questions on which Newton's philosophy of nature was built. (shrink)

The human science or qualitative approaches to research have always argued that methodology must be determined by the subject matter under study. Yet the same approaches to data collection (i.e., the qualitative interview) and data analysis have been utilized by these approaches since their inception. The most essential lesson of van den Berg's metabletics is that no phenomenon is static or absolute. If human phenomena are ever-changing then the methodologies we use to study them must also change and adapt, so (...) that we can more fully and authentically capture their meaning structures. This paper will develop this argument, and demonstrate the limitation of interviews for the study of the changing nature of human phenomena, utilizing psychotherapy research as an example. (shrink)

Isaac Newton was indisputably one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievements in mathematics and physics marked the culmination of the movement that brought modern science into being. Richard Westfall's biography captures in engaging detail both his private life and scientific career, presenting a complex picture of Newton the man, and as scientist, philosopher, theologian, alchemist, public figure, President of the Royal Society, and Warden of the Royal Mint. An abridged version of his magisterial study Never at Rest, (...) this concise biography makes Westfall's highly acclaimed portrait of Newton newly accessible to general readers. (shrink)

While it seems to be evident that the vision of the eternal return of the same is the solution to the riddle mentioned in "On the vision and the riddle," exactly what constitutes the riddle is anything but clear. Li ke all good riddles the solution demands a paradigm shift. Nietzsche's riddle is solved by a radical rethinking of the concept of time, from a straight line to a circle. I give a detailed account of how Nietzsche's riddle is formulated (...) in such a way tha t the eternal return of the same is the only possible solution. (shrink)

How transcription factors achieve their in vivo specificities is a fundamental question in biology. For the Homeotic Complex (HOM/Hox) family of homeoproteins, specificity in vivo is likely to be in part determined by subtle differences in the DNA binding properties inherent in these proteins. Some of these differences in DNA binding are due to sequence differences in the N‐terminal arms of HOM/Hox homeodomains. Evidence also exists to suggest that cofactors can modify HOM/Hox function by cooperative DNA binding interactions. The Drosophila (...) homeoprotein extradenticle (exd) is likely to be one such cofactor. In HOM/Hox proteins, both the conserved ‘YPWM’ peptide motif and the homeodomain are important for interacting with exd. Although exd provides part of the answer as to how specificity is achieved, there may be additional cofactors and mechanisms that have yet to be identified. (shrink)

Knowledge and expertise -- Knowledge and action -- The nature of professional action in urban planning.

In a recent article, Gross argues that physicians in decent societies have a civic duty to aid in the torturing of suspected terrorists during emergency conditions. The argument presupposes a communitarian society in which considerations of common good override questions of individual rights, but it is also utilitarian. In the event that there is a ticking bomb and no other alternative available for defusing it, torture must be used, and physicians must play their part. In an earlier article, Jones also (...) argues in favour of physician participation in torture, going so far as to enthusiastically endorse the allocation of research resources as well to ensure that the ability to meet emergency situations is as efficient as scientifically possible. I argue against both these views and defend the absolute prohibition against torture generally, and against any participation by physicians in particular. I show that these arguments are incompatible with liberal or decent societies, and that the institutional requirements for making torture effective would constitute an unacceptable degradation both of medical ethics and practice, as well as of political institutions in general. (shrink)