Mark D. White

Writer, editor, teacher

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about

I’m a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where I teach courses in philosophy, economics, and law, and the author/editor/co-editor of several books.

Category: Books

  • If an economist had written All-Star Superman…

    This is great: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal takes an extremely practical approach to the life of Superman, part of it resembling Mahesh Ananth and Ben Dixon's chapter titled "Should Bruce Wayne Have Become Batman?" from Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul (questioning whether superheroics are the morally best use of Bruce Wayne's wealth and…

  • When economics and philosophy divorced…

    Mark D. White In a recent "The Shrink and the Sage" piece in the Financial Times Magazine, Julian Baggini (prolific popularizer of philosophy) and Antonia Macaro discuss the pursuit of happiness, which is very interesting in itself, but I was particularly amused by how Baggini started his half of the discussion: When psychology and philosophy…

  • Assessing Competence to Refuse Medical Treatment

    Mark D. White Last night I read a wonderful and concise article by Jillian Craigie (King's College London) from the latest issue of Bioethics (25/6, July 2011) titled "Competence, Practical Rationality and What a Patient Values." The abstract follows: According to the principle of patient autonomy, patients have the right to be self-determining in decisions…

  • Interview about Green Lantern and Philosophy at Hero Complex/L.A. Times

    The interview I did with my co-editor Jane Dryden about Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book just appeared at the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog. (It also includes a shameless plug for another new book of mine, Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character.) Thanks to Jevon Phillips for…

  • David Brooks’ false dichotomy regarding autonomy and sociality

    Mark D. White Last week, David Brooks' column "It's Not About You" in The New York Times spoke to the challenges that new college graduates face as they enter "the real world," focusing on the change in the imposed structure that has shielded them from life to this point: More important, their lives have been perversely…

  • Go, Mogo, Go

    Warning: Planet-sized spoilers for Green Lantern Corps #60 (as well as a little shameless self-promotion)…    

  • David Brooks on individuality and sociality: A Kantian perspective

    Mark D. White David Brooks has a fascinating article on new research on human nature in today's New York Times (a condensation, of sorts, of his wonderfully written piece in The New Yorker in January–and, apparently, his new book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, which was reviewed recently in The…

  • Bill Willingham: Turn me evil once, shame on you–turn me evil twice, shame on me!

    In a new interview on Newsarama, comics writer (and sometimes artist) Bill Willingham discusses many things, including Fables of course, but also why he left JSA after twelve issues (contained in the trades shown to the left, The Bad Seed and Axis of Evil). In particular, he cites issues with accommodating crossovers and editorial interference, which…

  • Captain America movie poster and Civil War

    In the spirit of Bleeding Cool's "Swipe File," here's the newly released poster for Captain America: The First Avenger:   My first impulse was that it was similar to the famous "Cap's pissin' behind his shield: pose from the wonder Michael Turner (RIP) piece for Civil War:   But now I think it resembles more…

  • Green Lantern and Philosophy at The Green Lantern Corps

    Check out the forums at The Green Lantern Corps, where they've started talking about Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book. I recently joined the discussion myself  - hopefully I'll get the chance to share some tidbits with the devout GL fans. (I started with the table of contents to the book.)…