The main aim of this work is to relate integrability in QFT with a complete particle interpretation directly to the principle of causal localization, circumventing the standard method of finding sufficiently many conservation laws. Its precise conceptual-mathematical formulation as “modular localization” within the setting of local operator algebras also suggests novel ways of looking at general (non-integrable) QFTs which are not based on quantizing classical field theories.Conformal QFT, which is known to admit no particle interpretation, suggest the presence of a (...) “partial” integrability, referred to as “conformal integrability”. This manifests itself in a “braid-permutation” group structure which contains in particular informations about the anomalous dimensional spectrum. For chiral conformal models this reduces to the braid group as it is represented in Hecke- or Birman-Wenzl-algebras associated to chiral models.Another application of modular localization mentioned in this work is an alternative to the BRST formulation of gauge theories in terms of stringlike vectorpotentials within a Hilbert space setting. (shrink)

Rather than answering the broad question, ‘What is a just income?’, in this essay I consider one component of income—economic rent—under one understanding of justice—as giving people what they deserve. As it turns out, the answer to this more focused question is ‘no’. People do not deserve their economic rents, and there is no bar of justice to their confiscation. After briefly covering the concept of desert and explaining what economic rents are, I analyze six types of rent and show (...) that each is unjustified from the point of view of desert. I conclude by drawing some political and economic lessons from the preceding analysis, and by describing how these considerations can create a more just and efficient economy. (shrink)

Women and men are biologically and reproductively dissimilar. This sexual distinctiveness gives rise to a “sexual asymmetry”—the fundamental reality that the potential consequences of sexual intercourse are far more immediate and serious for women than for men. Advocates of contraception and abortion sought to cure sexual asymmetry by decoupling sex from procreation, relieving women from the consequences of sex, and thus equalizing the sexual experiences of men and women. But efforts to suppress or reject biological difference have not relieved women (...) of the consequences of sex and the vulnerabilities of pregnancy, even as they have further relieved men. Although secular feminist responses to biological difference have served to exacerbate sexual asymmetry, Catholic teaching on abortion, sex, and marriage—even contraception—provides an authentically pro-woman cultural response. (shrink)

Focusing on a particular facet of entitlement theory, I criticize the view that Nozick’s version of the theory provides an adequate description of procedural justice. I agree with Nozick that justice is procedural; however, I believe his entitlement theory as it currently stands is incomplete. I show that Nozick is committed to believing that the implied content of his entitlement theory is unjust, and therefore that a certain set of market transactions ought to be judged as legally wrong according to (...) Nozick’s own political foundations. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the Non-Aggression Principle is inconsistent with what a procedurally just entitlement theory would require, and therefore diminishes the degree to which a full-fledged account of distributive justice can properly be called libertarian. Finally, I offer a principle intended as a starting point for a discussion of what constitutes just transfer, and briefly speculate as to the legal results of implementing such a principle. (shrink)