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: Journals

  • Why did we evolve to reason? (in Behavioral and Brain Sciences) [UPDATED]

    Mark D. White The new issue of Behavioral and Brian Sciences (34/2, 2011) focuses on the nature of the evolutionary advantages of reasoning; the target article, by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, is titled "Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory": Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better…

  • Considering Organ Donation Euthanasia

    Mark D. White An upcoming article in Bioethics (apparently open access for the time being) asks the question… SHOULD WE ALLOW ORGAN DONATION EUTHANASIA? ALTERNATIVES FOR MAXIMIZING THE NUMBER AND QUALITY OF ORGANS FOR TRANSPLANTATION Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu ABSTRACT There are not enough solid organs available to meet the needs of patients with…

  • Does the financial crisis call for reflection on economic methodology?

    Mark D. White A minisymposium in the most recent issue of Journal of Economic Metholodogy (December 2010) asks that very question–it seems to be that reflection on methodology is always justified, and it is unfortunate that it took a crisis of this magnitude to spur it. After a brief introduction from Kevin Hoover, the following…

  • Does health (or health care) have special moral status?

    Mark D. White I just came across a fascinating paper titled "Is Health (Really) Special? Health Policy Between Rawlsian and Luck Egalitarian Justice" by Shlomi Segall (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the Journal of Applied Philosophy. From the abstract: In recent work, Norman Daniels extends the application of Rawls's principle of "fair equality of opportunity"…

  • On Artifical Intelligence and Personhood (with thanks to Isaac Asimov)

    Mark D. White Thanks to Larry Solum's Legal Theory Blog, I became aware of F. Patrick Hubbard's new paper "'Do Androids Dream?': Personhood and Intelligent Artifacts," forthcoming in Temple Law Review, which considers the issue of granting the status of personhood to an artificial intelligence: This Article proposes a test to be used in answering…

  • The Ambiguity of “Dignity” in Embryo Research and Judicial Decisions

    Mark D. White An article in the new issue of Bioethics (25/1, January 2011) by Inmaculada de Melo-Martín titled "Human Dignity in International Policy Documents: A Useful Criterion for Public Policy?" examines several EU documents governing enbryo research to see if their regulations motivated by proecting human dignity are useful, informative, and/or effective. From the…

  • Telling It Like It Isn’t: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Confabulation

    Mark D. White Bear with me, this is very relevant, especially to the previous post on behavioral law and economics. Even if it's not, it's very interesting. The new issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (16/6, 2010) (open access until February 28, 2011) features a symposium on the cognitive neurosceicne of confabulation.…

  • Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a Hayekian?

    Mark D. White While searching for readings for my legal philosophy class (now focusing on constitutional interpretation in light of the pending Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process), I lit upon this fantastic symposium on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Ohio State Law Journal, in particular the article by Tobias Barrington Wolff entitled "Ruth Bader…