Punitive Damages, Social Norms, and Economic Analysis

Cooter offers an economic analysis of punitive damages, keeping in mind the role of social norms. Liability for compensatory damages provides efficient incentives for self-monitoring

Eliminating Prudential Reasons

I argue, contrary to the consensus of most contemporary work in ethics, that there are no (fundamentally, distinctively) prudential reasons for action. That is to say: there is no class of reasons for action that is distinctively and fundamentally about the promotion of the agent’s own well-being. Considerations to do with the agent’s well-being can supply the agent with reasons only in virtue of her well-being mattering morally or in virtue of her caring about her own well-being. In both of these cases, the way that such prudential considerations supply reasons for action is a way that the well-being of others can supply reasons for action too

Harm and Money: Against the Insurance Theory of Tort Compensation

Since the 1980s, tort damages for pain and suffering have excited hue and cry. Twenty-three states currently place statutory limitations on tort damages for pain and suffering: seven states cap damages in general tort cases; an additional sixteen states limit awards solely in medical malpractice cases. Several states also have provisions limiting damages in other, very specific types of tort cases. While some statutes have been invalidated on state constitutional grounds, others have survived judicial scrutiny. At the federal level, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed tort-reform bills. Although no compromise legislation has been enacted, this is the first time that both chambers of Congress have passed bills limiting recovery for pain and suffering. Against this political backdrop, a number of leading legal economists have advanced the insurance theory of tort compensation to justify the elimination of tort damages for pain and suffering. The insurance theory\u27s roots lie in neoclassical economics, and it adopts the broader discipline\u27s guiding normative principle of economic rationality to decide the sorts of injuries for which a victim ought to be able to recover damages in tort. The insurance theory\u27s central premise is that accident victims should not recover damages for injuries against which it would not have been economically rational to insure. In other words, if an economically rational agent would not purchase first-party insurance for a certain type of injury, tortfeasors should not be required to pay damages for it. Insurance theorists conclude that rational actors would not insure against nonpecuniary losses, and therefore accident victims should not be able to recover tort damages for them

The application of combined momentum and blade element theory for aerodynamics performance analysis of rotating blades

In this thesis, a simulation package for the Six Degrees of Freedom (6DOF ) motion of an underwater vehicle is developed. Mathematical modeling of an underwater vehicle is done and the parameters needed to write such a simulation package are obtained from an existing underwater vehicle available in the literature. Basic equations of motion are developed to simulate the motion of the underwater vehicle and the parameters needed for the hydrodynamic modeling of the vehicle is obtained from the available literature. 6DOF simulation package prepared for the underwater vehicle was developed using the MATLAB environment. S-function hierarchy is developed using the same platform with C++ programming language. With the usage of Sfunctions the problems related to the speed of the platform have been eliminated. The use of S- function hierarchy brought out the opportunity of running the simulation package on other independent platforms and get results for the simulation. Keywords: Underwater Vehicle Simulation, Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML ), MATLAB S-function, Simulink, C++, 6DOF

A dynamic programming approach to constrained portfolios

This paper studies constrained portfolio problems that may involve constraints on the probability or the expected size of a shortfall of wealth or consumption. Our first contribution is that we solve the problems by dynamic programming, which is in contrast to the existing literature that applies the martingale method. More precisely, we construct the non-separable value function by formalizing the optimal constrained terminal wealth to be a (conjectured) contingent claim on the optimal non-constrained terminal wealth. This is relevant by itself, but also opens up the opportunity to derive new solutions to constrained problems. As a second contribution, we thus derive new results for non-strict constraints on the shortfall of inter¬mediate wealth and/or consumption

Social Rights and Deontological Constraints

Assuming that there is not terminological or conceptual impediment to call social and economic rights “human rights”, this paper argues that social and economic human rights are normatively different from classical civil and political human rights, and that this may have some significant institutional implications. Following mainstream opinion, I presuppose that both classical liberal rights and socioeconomic human rights are bundles of negative and positive “incidents” (concrete rights). My first claim is that in both cases negative incidents can plausibly be constructed as “deontological constraints.” That means that such constraints must be observed even if infringing them could maximize the satisfaction of the interests those rights seek to preserve. My second claim is that, contrary to classical human rights, the fulfillment of the negative incidents of socioeconomic rights, albeit necessary, does not represent a significant contribution to their fulfillment. Since in the case of socioeconomic human rights positive incidents play such crucial role, there is a relevant asymmetry between classical and socioeconomic human rights. The paper concludes by showing some institutional implications of this asymmetry.Fil: Rivera López, Eduardo Enrique. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Consequentializing Moral Dilemmas

The aim of the consequentializing project is to show that, for every plausible ethical theory, there is a version of consequentialism that is extensionally equivalent to it. One challenge this project faces is that there are common-sense ethical theories that posit moral dilemmas. There has been some speculation about how the consequentializers should react to these theories, but so far there has not been a systematic treatment of the topic. In this article, I show that there are at least five ways in which we can construct versions of consequentialism that are extensionally equivalent to the ethical theories that contain moral dilemmas. I argue that all these consequentializing strategies face a dilemma: either they must posit moral dilemmas in unintuitive cases or they must rely on unsupported assumptions about value, permissions, requirements, or options. I also consider this result's consequences for the consequentializing project

Understanding Kindness – A Moral Duty of Human Resource Leaders

The role of leaders in the modern organization has evolved as scholars and practitioners have recognized that a key element to long-term profitability is the creation of high trust and high commitment work systems that treat employees as valued partners (Kim & Wright, 2011; Block, 2013; Beer, 2009; Caldwell & Floyd, 2014). Effective leaders create aligned organizational cultures with systems, processes, practices, and programs reinforcing the organization’s espoused values in achieving its mission (Schein, 2010). Human resource professionals (HRPs) play a critical leadership role in ensuring that human resource management (HRM) cultural elements are properly integrated, communicated effectively to employees, and followed in a manner that builds trust and increases commitment (Lengnick-Hall, 2009; McEvoy, et al., 2005). The purpose of this paper is to identify the importance of kindness as a moral duty of HRPs in serving their organizations and the employees within them. As HRPs perform their strategic and operational roles in the modern organization, properly understanding the nature of kindness is an important factor in carrying out HRM roles. This paper begins by defining kindness and its specific application to HRPs — equating the definition of kindness as a leadership trait with six elements of kindness and seven kindness-related ethical perspectives. The paper concludes with a summary of its contribution for HRP practitioners and scholars in understanding the nuances of kindness as a morally-and ethically-related HRM leadership virtue