Judging judges

The fallout from the Leo Tesky appeal continues, with journalists, legal scholars, and the Alberta Minister of Justice criticizing Judge Brad Kerby, who now faces the possibility of disciplinary action. It’s also led to a more general discussion about how judges are to be selected for the bench, and if judges have enough experience dealing [...]

Read Full Post »

What if books came with an End User License Agreement?

Stephen Dubner imagines a world without libraries, and asks:
Given the current state of debate about intellectual property, can you imagine modern publishers being willing to sell one copy of a book and then have the owner let an unlimited number of strangers borrow it?
He suspects book publishers would adopt the economic models used by [...]

Read Full Post »

Another philosophy survey

Online studies of moral opinions seem to be popping up all over. Here’s one by Neil Levy that deals with moral relativism. It’s short and fun – although I found some of the answer choices overly restrictive.
After taking quite a few of these, it is clear philosophers interested in polling should study survey methods, consult [...]

Read Full Post »

Changing WordPress themes

Over the next hour or so, I’m going to test some new designs for this blog. There might be a few blips as changes take effect.
Update: I’ve reverted to the MistyLook theme, added some pages, and tinkered with the sidebar. In the near future, I’ll change the header’s photo to distinguish this blog from others [...]

Read Full Post »

The meaning of ‘legal persons’

This post, which follows a rant about a pet peeve of mine, is for those who might be confused by the idea of giving non-humans the status of legal persons. As a term of art, the phrase ‘legal person‘ only makes sense as long as you don’t confuse it with the ordinary meaning of ‘person’.
Legal [...]

Read Full Post »