Cross-Post: Crime, Punishment and Responsibility (Series Index) via Philosophical Disquisitions

So, here's a nice one from the philosophy blog world. John Danaher, lecturer in law at Keele University (also found on twitter), who runs the very nice philosophy blog Philosophical Disquisitions has posted what is effectively a hypertext table of contents to an edited web-volume of blog-posts on the broad topic of free will, responsibility and punishment. Great stuff for the advanced student or generally interested reader, as well as colleagues engaged in these issues. John continues his pursuit of issues in this direction, so after you have gone through the posts indexed in the contents, you can move on to his latest, on the topic of the concept of being liable for attempted crimes. Here's the TOC cross-posted:

1. Free Will and Moral Responsibility

• Free Will: a Conceptual Framework
• Who's Afraid of Determinism (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)
• Action, Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise (Part One, Part Two)
• Present Luck and Little Agents
• Fischer, Frankfurt and Flickers of Freedom (Part One, Part Two)
• The Frankfurt Counterexample Defended by Nucci
• List on Free Will and Determinism (Part One, Part Two)
• Waller's Argument Against Moral Responsibility (Part One, Part Two)

2. Theories of Punishment

• The Ethics of the Death Penalty
• Moore on Justifying Retributivism (Part One, Part Two)
• Theories of Desert
• Brooks on Retributivist Arguments Against the Death Penalty (Part One, Part Two)
• The Problem of Punishing the Innocent

3. Criminal Responsibility and Liability

• Madness, Badness and Neuroimaging-based Responsibility Assessments (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)
• Vincent's Structured Taxonomy of Responsibility Concepts
• Taking Responsibility vs. Being Morally Responsible
• Vincent on the Responsibility-Liability Gap

Burzynski Clinic Sued by Patient for Fraud, Neglience and Whatnot

So, at last, something seems to be happening that is somewhat along the lines I called for in my last post on the ugly operations of the Burzynski Clinic. It is now reported that a patient that has been victimised financially as well as medically by the Burzynski confidence scam is suing for "punitive damages for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, deceptive trade and conspiracy". Hopefully she will win the case and hopefully this will put the Burzynski operation out of business.

However, this operation is in fact a business model for the callous and greedy in the world of private health care business. So, even if the suit would manage to put the Burzynski Clinic down, the phenomenon remains possible as long as the FDA accepts and permits clinical trials on the conditions exemplified by the Burzynski scam. The case for FDA to change its policy therefore stands unmoved.

My best of luck to the claimant, Ms. Quinlan!

Bids, not Blogs – nor Research or Articles

Thought I'd just post a brief thing to explain why there has been no new post in a while. The explanation is familiar to all who have come into closer contact with the world of academic research: I'm at the moment heavily engaged in what is nowadays by universities and governments considered to be the most precious of research tasks – namely the authouring and submission of applications for monetary funding to do research. That's right, the government research budget is used for paying me a salary so that I can apply for money to actually do that which motivates the research budget in the first place. This idea is expressed, e.g., by performance indicators governing how much government funds will be allocated to my university, faculty and department next year – where the attraction of external funding is by far the most important one (since it weighs the most by far in terms of money next year). So, in effect, besides teaching two minor courses and perhaps being able to submit one of the several papers I have been unable to finish due to this allocation of tasks by my employer, this is what my working spring will be about: being paid money for maybe (or, since the competition is deadly, rather unlikely) getting some money to do the very thing I would have been doing with my working time had I not been tasked primarily to write applications.

I'm not the only one sensing irrationality and counterproductivity in this way of the world, as you can see.