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: Law

  • Steve Medema on the Coase Theorem and history of economic thought

    Mark D. White In the latest issue of Journal of the History of Economic Thought (33/1, March 2011), we find Steve Medema's History of Economic Society presidential address, titled "The Coase Theorem: Lessons for the Study of the Study of Economic Thought": The Coase theorem has occupied a prominent place in economic discourse for the last…

  • More eminent domain abuse (the sad legacy of Kelo)

    Mark D. White Ilya Shapiro at the CATO Institute brings yet more tragic news of eminent domain abuse in his latest CATO @ Liberty blog post – please read it, and make sure to read his earlier material on eminent domain linked in the piece. Despite what the Supreme Court decided in Kelo, this cannot…

  • From Florida, another judicial blow to individual mandate

    Mark D. White Today, Judge Roger Vinson of Florida reiterated Judge Henry E. Hudson's opinion from last month that the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. From The Wall Street Journal: In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson, a Republican appointee, said that the law's requirement to carry insurance or pay a…

  • Debating the Insanity Defense

    Mark D. White In the most recent "Room for Debate" feature in The New York Times, five scholars involved in law, psychiatry, and criminal justice discuss the current state of the insanity defense in light of the Tucson shootings. A nice range of viewpoints is presented, from Alan Dershowitz's argument that the insanity defense has…

  • The Spectre, Atrocitus, and Retributivism in Green Lantern #61

    Oh, boy, it doesn't get much better than this… this week's Green Lantern #61, featuring the Spectre, Atrocitus, and the Butcher, talking about vengeance, justice, rage… SPOILERS after the jump…

  • 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…

  • “Free to Choose” symposium on behavioral law and economics

    Mark D. White As I noted earlier, on December 6 and 7 the blog Truth on the Market hosted "Free to Choose?", an online symposium on behavioral law and economics, the contents of which appear below the fold, followed by an excerpt from Josh Wright's introductory comment.

  • Health care and the Constitution: On the individual mandate and pre-existing conditions

    Mark D. White As you may have heard, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled Monday that the part of the Affordable Care Act (the health care reform bill passed earlier this year) dependant on the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. From his ruling (as reported by The Wall Street Journal): "At…

  • New blog: Law and the Multiverse

    Courtesy of Brian Cronin of Comics Should Be Good, here's a new blog about superheroes and the law: Law and the Multiverse. Some of my favorite posts: Is Batman a state actor?, Federalism and the Keene Act (from Watchmen), and Resurrection Redux: Crimes, Punishment, and Debt.