The United States, unlike most developed countries, continues to use the marital couple as the taxable unit for its income tax. This continued use of the marital unit— like its original establishment —rests on cultural preferences. This Article suggests that the roles of marriage, religion and taxation in America are essential factors in America’s retention of the marital unit. Part I examines the distinctive contribution marriage — especially the traditional single-earner breadwinner marriage — makes to the political life of the (...) country. Part II explores the similar role of religion. Part III describes some congressional efforts over the past two decades to aid, ostensibly, married couples through the income tax. Part IV concludes that although these actions have not been the most effective or efficient means of helping married couples, they nevertheless serve an important expressive purpose. Tax has been the arena for many political issues since the founding of the nation. Consequently, congressional actions and rhetoric regarding the income tax’s "marriage penalty" reinforce the marital unit/joint return and reaffirm — even if only symbolically — a national commitment to marriage as instrumental to American democracy. (shrink)

ConclusionTo paraphrase marjorie Kornhauser’s famed observation, a taxcollection system for revenue only is a chimera. If, for the American woman, tax collection were only, and only ever, about revenue, then they would have constantly and consitently collect it from us. When we did not have what they say we should have, then they would penalise us. The fact of the matter is, that when they do collect it from us, it is, more often than not, because they have (...) been successful in their efforts to help us sustain ourselves in an image which they have created. One problem with self-assessment is that exemplary penalties are allowed; indeed, arede rigeur. The latest example of a feminine image which spurrerd the American tax collector to action is the Leona Helmsley equation of consumption—plus—feminine equals “ off with her head”. If only for this reason, self assessment demands to be, as Handelman and Green might argue, politicised with the feminine voice. (shrink)

No student or colleague of Marjorie Grene will miss her incisive presence in these papers on the study and nature of living nature, and we believe the new reader will quickly join the stimulating discussion and critique which Professor Grene steadily provokes. For years she has worked with equally sure knowledge in the classical domain of philosophy and in modern epistemological inquiry, equally philosopher of science and metaphysician. Moreover, she has the deeply sensible notion that she should be a (...) critically intelligent learner as much as an imaginatively original thinker, and as a result she has brought insightful expository readings of other philosophers and scientists to her own work. We were most fortunate that Marjorie Grene was willing to spend a full semester of a recent leave here in Boston, and we have on other occasions sought her participation in our colloquia and elsewhere. Now we have the pleasure of including among the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science this generous selection from Grene's philosophical inquiries into the understanding of the natural world, and of the men and women in it. Boston University Center for the R. S. COHEN Philosophy and History of Science M. W. W ARTOFSKY April 1974 PREFACE This collection spans - spottily - years from 1946 ('On Some Distinctions between Men and Brutes') to 1974 ('On the Nature of Natural Necessity'). (shrink)

Norwegian health professionals, elderly people and family members experience ethical problems involving end-of-life decision making for elders in the context of the values of Norwegian society. This study used ethical inquiry and qualitative methodology to conduct and analyze interviews carried out with 25 health professionals, six elderly people and five family members about the ethical problems they encountered in end-of-life decision making in Norway. All three participant groups experienced ethical problems involving the adequacy of health care for elderly Norwegians. Older (...) people were concerned about being a burden to their families at the end of their life. However, health professionals wished to protect families from the burden of difficult decisions regarding health care for elderly parents at the end of life. Strategies are suggested for dialogue about end-of-life decisions and the integration of palliative care approaches into health care services for frail elderly people. (shrink)

Illustrates the similarities between the enslavement of Black people and the enslavement of animals in both the past and the present.

In this accessible integration of psychology and theology, Marjorie Lindner Gunnoe offers a comprehensive understanding of personhood from both perspectives, examining the intersection of biblical perspectives with established theories of social development as proposed by Erik Erikson, B. F. Skinner, Evoluntionary Psychology, and more.

Analyses of complex entities such as bureaucracies, courts, legislatures, and firms typically personify them. A strong conception of personification requires that these entities have rational interests, rational beliefs, and rational normative judgments. On one account of personification, such personified rationality should be aggregate rationality : the interests, beliefs, and normative judgments should depend only on the interests, beliefs, and judgments of the individuals who constitute the complex entity. I argue that aggregate rationality is too strong a normative requirement to impose (...) on courts and legislatures. Key Words: collective rationality • personification • adjudication • doctrinal paradox. (shrink)

This essay investigates consequentialist reasoning in law. It begins with a brief exposition of the structure of consequentialist reasoning. It then turns to the role of consequentialist reasoning in two aspects of legal decision-making. Legal officials must reason both about ends and about the choice of means to achieve those ends. Legal instrumentalism, however, takes many forms, and different forms identify different officials to engage in the task of reasoning consequentially to choose means. The essay then considers the difficulties posed (...) by the fact that legal decision-makers choose policies or institutions that structure the outcomes they hope to achieve. Finally, the essay considers the role that consequentialist reasoning may play in choosing ends. (shrink)

This essay disentangles the complex relations between economic logic and legal logic. It distinguishes economic logic as a social process from economic logic as economic reasoning; economic reasoning to explain behavior from economic reasoning to evaluate behavioral outcomes; and legal reasoning in judicial contexts from legal reasoning in other contexts such as legislation and legal enforcement or compliance. It then argues first that economic logic as the logic of social processes deepens our understanding of how law develops and how it (...) influences behavior. But the essay argues second that economic logic plays at best a limited role in the logic of legal reasoning for two reasons. Much legal reasoning seeks to identify the goals we should and do pursue while economic logic takes such goals as given. Further, the instrumental role of economic logic will vary with the institutional context in which legal reasoning occurs. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction A Characterization of Economic Analysis of Law Normativity Preference and Obligation Concluding Remarks Note References.

Constitutional political economy addresses four questions: the causal question: What explains the constitutional institutions we observe? the consequential question: What consequences do constitutional institutional have? the ideal question: What constitutional institutions does justice require? and the design question: What constitutional institutions are best for a polity given the constraints imposed by its current situation? Answers to the ideal and design questions require a theory of behavior that predicts how individuals will behave within constitutional institutions. Analysts usually assume that this theory (...) of behavior corresponds to the explanatory theory developed to answer the second, consequential question. This essay argues that the assumption of rational self-interested behavior as the basis for a behavioral theory is not justified. (shrink)

“I would prefer not”HERMAN MELVILLE, BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER: A STORY OF WALL STREET (1853), reprinted in THE PIAZZA TALES 32, 48 (London, Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1856). Scholars have recently challenged the claim in classical deterrence theory that law influences behavior only through the expected sanction imposed. Some go further and argue that law may also “shape preferences,” changing people’s wants and values. In this Article, we analyze existing claims that criminal and civil law alter preferences and conclude that (...) none suggest that the law shapes preferences. We first clarify this preference-shaping claim by elaborating the structure of rational choice theory generally and “preference” in particular. We then investigate three mechanisms of legal influence suggested by the preference-shaping literature: (1) the “serious harm” mechanism; (2) the “social norm” mechanism; and (3) the “self-improvement” mechanism. We then show that each of these mechanisms operates by changing the agent’s beliefs about the attributes or consequences of her choice options rather than by changing her preferences. (shrink)

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to (...) expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, _American Literature_ "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, _Boston Review_ "_Wittgenstein's Ladder_ offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, _Chicago Review_ "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic.... Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, _Sub-Stance_. (shrink)

Nancy Franken Berry, in a pre-publication review, has identified this work as, Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Is life different from the non-living? If so, how? And how, in that case, does biology as the study of living things differ from other sciences? These questions are traced through an exploration of episodes in the history of biology and philosophy. The book begins with Aristotle, then moves on to Descartes, comparing his position with that of Harvey. In the eighteenth century the authors consider Buffon and Kant. In the nineteenth century the authors examine the Cuvier-Geoffroy debate, pre-Darwinian geology (...) and natural theology, Darwin and the transition from Darwin to the revival of Mendelism. Two chapters deal with the evolutionary synthesis and such questions as the species problem, the reducibility or otherwise of biology to physics and chemistry, and the problem of biological explanation in terms of function and teleology. The final chapters reflect on the implications of the philosophy of biology for philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

Can an assessment of individuals’ narcissism help explain the quality of a respondent’s ethical judgment? How is the relationship between religiosity and ethical judgment moderated by the effects of narcissism? With a sample of 385 undergraduate business majors, this study uses a taxonomic approach to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as well as orthodox Christian beliefs on ethical judgment. Three distinct clusters were identified: Skeptics, Nominals, and Devouts. Surprisingly, of the three clusters, Nominals and Devouts were the (...) only groups impacted by narcissism, although Skeptics overall demonstrate the worst ethical judgment. (shrink)

In an essay on ‘The Notion of Cause’ reprinted in Mysticism and Logic Russell argued ‘that the word ‘cause” is so inextricably bound up with misleading associations as to make its complete extrusion from the philosophical vocabulary desirable’.1 His argument here to the effect that ‘cause’ is not a central concept in science, as philosophers have thought it, is reminiscent of Norman Campbell's statement in Physics: The Elements and in What is Science?.

When the world's first face transplant was performed in France in 2005, the complex medical procedure and accompanying worldwide media attention sparked many ethical issues, including how the media covered the story. This study uses framing theory to examine what happens when media ethics intersect with bioethics by analyzing French, American, and British media coverage on the transplant and its aftermath. This study looks at how this story was framed and which bioethical issues were focused upon. The media ethical implications (...) of these findings are then discussed. By doing so, this article attempts to contribute to the debate on how complex medical stories with bioethical components can be reported in an ethical manner. (shrink)

What kind of turn is the turn to ethics? A Right turn? A Left turn? A wrong turn? A U-turn? Ethics is back in literary studies, philosophy, and political theory. Where critiques of universal man and the autonomous human subject had, in recent years, produced a resistance to ethics in many fields of scholarship, today these critiques have generated a crossover among disciplines and led to theories and practices that see and do ethics otherwise. The decentering of the subject, the (...) contributors to this volume suggest, has brought about a recentering of the ethical. The philosophers, political theorists, literary critics and physician whose essays are collected here bring the particularities of their disciplines and training to a vital complex of questions. Many of these authors express concerns that the turn to ethics is a turn away from politics towards moralism. All ultimately conclude, however, that such concerns, rather than leading away from ethics, have helped to reinvigorate the intellectual field in the present moment. Contributors: Judith Butler, Homi K. Bhabha, Lawrence Buell, Nancy Fraser, John Guillory, Beatrice Hanssen, Barbara Johnson, Perri Klass, Chantal Mouffe, Doris Sommer, Rebecca Walkowitz. (shrink)

Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the her mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical mind.

The chapters of the book do not situate Spinoza among the natural philosophical giants who opened the way to modern science. Rather they explore Spinoza's relation to the sciences in a variety of ways. Contributors: Joseph Agassi, Thomas Cook, Marjorie Grene, Hans Jonas, André Lecrivain, Genevieve Lloyd, Alexandre Matheron, Nancy Maull, Debra Nails, Michel Paty, Richard H. Popkin, David Savan, Heine Siebrand, and Joe D. Van Zandt.