Mark D. White

This seems like a good time for an update—not an end of the year wrap-up, but just what I've been doing since my last update in October.

The paper I wrote for the Mercatus Center, "The Problems with Measuring and Using Happiness for Policy Purposes," based on my last book, The Illusion of Well-Being, came out earlier this month. Stemming from that, I had an op-ed at U.S. News & World Report's Economic Intelligence blog and a short radio interview with WTOP. More coming on this front in the coming months…

The American Philosophical Association (APA) Eastern division meetings were last weekend, during which I gave a talk on moral judgment, reconnected with some old friends, and made some new ones. I had to leave after just one day, though, to get ready for the Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) meetings next weekend, at which I'll give the Presidential Address on judgment for the Association for Social Economics (ASE), a talk on inequality for the International Network for Economic Method (INEM), and attend all sorts of association and editorial board meetings (including conferring with my co-editors of the four-volume Major Works collection in social economics from Routledge).

When I return, my work for spring begins: revising my paper on nudges in health care for the edited volume resulting from the Petrie-Flom conference in May; checking the proofs and constructing the index for my next edited book, Law and Social Economics: Essays in Ethical Values for Theory, Practice, and Policy, coming out it March; and writing book chapters on the ethics of work, positive psychology and policy, and two on libertarian paternalism.

In terms of books, progress continues on edited books on economics-and-virtue and the insanity defense. I have several sole-authored books planned, and soon soon I will be launching a new book series on ethics and economics for Rowman & Littlefield International—more details to come on that (including the first book, which I will edit).

Also, I had some blog activity since my last update:

• Three posts at Psychology Today: "How Much Does Political Affiliation Reveal about Character?" (a response to this Jonathan Chait piece), "The Other Thing You Need to Look For in a Partner" (a follow-up an earlier post), and "My 2015 New Year’s Resolution: Find Out What I Can Do" (also a follow-up to a similar post from a year ago).
• Three posts at Economics and Ethics: "David Brooks on deference for incompetent authority in the wake of Ebola fear" (in response to this Brooks piece), "More confusion about individualism in The New York Times" (in response to this piece in The Stone), and "Cost effectiveness is not the problem — government control of health care is" (in response to this piece in The Upshot).
• And one new post at The Comics Professor: "A problem with Marvel's AXIS: The difficulty of inverting complex characters."

As far as 2015 goes, the New Year's resolution post for Psychology Today linked above contains my mantra of sorts for the upcoming year: find out what I can do. This next year will be one of expanding my activity beyond writing, which I hope will lead to a fuller life (and also better, more enjoyable writing), but will also take far better time management. After all, if I do keep doing these personal updates, I have to make them more interesting!