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: Justice

  • Justice Does (Unfortunately) Have a Price in a World of Scarcity

    Mark D. White Recently, it was reported that the state of Missouri started providing cost estimates of various punishments to judges during the sentencing phase of criminal trials. Of course, this set off a firestorm of controversy regarding the appropriate role (if any) that the financial cost of punishment—particularly imprisonment—does or should play in a…

  • Federal judge orders injunction against “don’t ask don’t tell” policy

    Mark D. White This afternoon, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ordered a worldwide injunction against the Clinton-era "don't ask don't tell" policy in the United States military, under which homosexual servicemen and women must keep silent about their sexual orientation. As I wrote earlier, this demeans our proud men and women serving their country, both…

  • An unintentional survey of the ethics of gays in the military in the WSJ

    Mark D. White In today's Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens has a piece arguing why the GOP should let "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) lapse in the 2011 Defense Bill, and in it he happens to cover the three mainstream approaches to ethics: consequentialism (DADT forces the expulsion or rejection of qualified, eager men and…

  • Proposition 8 (and the tyranny of the majority) overturned in California

    Mark D. White Yesterday, Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned Proposition 8, the voter-enacted amendment to the California Constitution that declares marriage to be exclusively between a man and a woman. This case will undoubtedly move up through the court system, but for now this is undeniably a huge step. I especially appreciated this passage in Judge…

  • Tunnel vision and wrongful convictions

    Mark D. White I haev a new post at Psychology Today reviewing a fantastic new book chapter titled "Tunnel Vision" by University of Wisconsin Law School professor Keith A. Findley, also the co-director of the Wisconsin innocence Project and president of the Innocence Network. The chapter is forthcoming in the book, Conviction of the Innocent:…