According to deterrence justifications of legal punishment, legal punishment is justified at least in part because it deters offenses. These justifications rely on important empirical assumptions, e.g., that non-punitive enforcement can't deter or that it can't deter enough. I’ll challenge these assumptions and argue that extant deterrence justifications of legal punishment fail. In the process, I examine contemporary deterrence research and argue that it provides no support for these justifications.

It is well understood and appreciated that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems apply to sufficiently strong, formal deductive systems. In particular, the theorems apply to systems which are adequate for conventional number theory. Less well known is that there exist algorithms which can be applied to such a system to generate a gödel-sentence for that system. Although the generation of a sentence is not equivalent to proving its truth, the present paper argues that the existence of these algorithms, when conjoined with Gödel’s (...) results and accepted theorems of recursion theory, does provide the basis for an apparent paradox. The difficulty arises when such an algorithm is embedded within a computer program of sufficient arithmetic power. The required computer program (an AI system) is described herein, and the paradox is derived. A solution to the paradox is proposed, which, it is argued, illuminates the truth status of axioms in formal models of programs and Turing machines. (shrink)

Recent advances in biology hold out the real possibility of significant progress in the treatment of disease. At the same time however these technological discoveries have posed serious challenges to policy makers, the decision by the UK Court of Appeal in Zain Hashmi being a case in point. Judges and legislators have traditionally tried to apply principles of justice in the matters that lie before them. Future issues that involve genetic technology have the potential to involve more than this since (...) they imply an imperative to redefine ethical perimeters. However the new genetics goes beyond this and necessitates redefining human perimeters as well. This paper considers a position broadly known as consequentialism – in which outcomes are to be as good as possible - and argues instead on behalf of an approach to bioethical issues which demands consideration of the fairness of the procedures employed. (shrink)