Category: Ronald Dworkin
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Mark D. White I am profoundly saddened to report that pre-eminent legal and political philosopher Ronald Dworkin has died today in England. He was 81. Aside from Immanuel Kant, no thinker has been more influential on my writing, and my classes devoted to his work have been some of my most enjoyable to teach. It…
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Mark D. White Adam Liptak has a "Sidebar" in today's New York Times titled "'Politicians in Robes? Not Exactly, but…" discussing judges' voting records and the politics of the president who nominated them, citing data that finds a clear link and accusing judges of deciding cases based on "ideology." My comment is below: Of course judges are…
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Mark D. White Today on The Atlantic's website, Dan Ariely describes an experiment he conducted with Mike Norton in which they survey people about both the current distribution of wealth in the U.S. and what they thought the ideal distribution of wealth is. Not surprisingly, they find that most everybody underestimates the level of inequality of wealth,…
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Mark D. White Classes start for me on Monday (though our spring semester starts today–that's right, on a Friday), and my first class will be one of my favorites to teach. legal philosophy. And luckily for me (and for my students), I was given the perfect news item to start the class and motivate our…
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Mark D. White In the latest New York Review of Books (Feb. 10, 2011), Ronald Dworkin asks "What Is a Good Life?", offering an answer drawn from his book, Justice for Hedgehogs. From the article: We have a responsibility to live well, and the importance of living well accounts for the value of having a critically good…
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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…
Mark D. White 