Wrong Tomorrow, Wrong Yesterday, but not Today: On Sliding into Evil with Zeal but without Understanding

Collaboration with systems of evil-the overall topic of this Symposium-is a problem as fresh as contemporary news accounts. The New York Times recently carried a front-page story about the dilemmas described by young Serbs who were evading military conscription because they understood the evil of Slobodan Milosevic\u27s genocidal policies against the Kosovar Albanians but nonetheless felt a patriotic duty to protect their country against foreign assaults. As one young man put it, \u27\u27\u27we\u27d like to see [Milosevic] hanging.\u27 But ... \u27[i]f the guys from NATO come here, we will shoot them.\u27 ! As wrenching as this kind of dilemma may be, it is not the problem of collaboration that I want to discuss. My concern is with a more difficult problem, as I see it-a problem that is more insidious and difficult to identify as such. The young Serbian resister knows that his President is an evil man, and he feels the moral conflict between his revulsion at this evil and his patriotic impulses. My concern is for circumstances where the evil is not understood as such by its perpetrators, where they are unaware at the time they are acting of the wrongfulness of the actions in which they are engaged

REDUCTION OF STATE VARIABLE DIMENSION IN STOCHASTIC DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION MODELS WHICH USE TIME-SERIES DATA

Statistical procedures are developed for reducing the number of autonomous state variables in stochastic dynamic optimization models when these variables follow a stationary process over time. These methods essentially delete part of the information upon which decisions are based while maintaining a logically consistent model. The relatively simple linear autoregressive process as well as the general case is analyzed and the necessary formulae for practical application are derived. Several applications in agricultural economics are discussed and results presented which quantify the relative amount of information sacrificed with the reduction in number of state variables.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Evolution of Music by Public Choice

Music evolves as composers, performers, and consumers favor some musical variants over others. To investigate the role of consumer selection, we constructed a Darwinian music engine consisting of a population of short audio loops that sexually reproduce and mutate. This population evolved for 2,513 generations under the selective influence of 6,931 consumers who rated the loops’ aesthetic qualities. We found that the loops quickly evolved into music attributable, in part, to the evolution of aesthetically pleasing chords and rhythms. Later, however, evolution slowed. Applying the Price equation, a general description of evolutionary processes, we found that this stasis was mostly attributable to a decrease in the fidelity of transmission. Our experiment shows how cultural dynamics can be explained in terms of competing evolutionary forces

Self-Determination and the Wrongfulness of Death

Self-determination has become the central ideal governing medical treatment for patients generally and for terminally ill people specifically. Proponents of physician-assisted suicide set this ideal as their core claim. Opponents assert that the practice, if legally recognized, would inevitably slide into involuntary euthanasia for vulnerable people. This article will explore internal tensions within the self-determination ideal as applied to the administration of death that give plausibility to this slippery slope concern

Optimization of viral transduction in the central nervous system

Genetically based Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders remain a largely unresolved issue in the world today. Our genome is the source of our greatest strengths and weaknesses. For this reason, intelligent modification of the genome's DNA is a profoundly beneficial goal in the maximization of the overall health of the human race. Potential benefit in this field is currently limited in both effectiveness and safety in regards to the delivery of therapeutic genes into the nucleus, which is protected by many evolution-based barriers. Evolution has also favored the development of highly specialized and infectiously effective viruses capable of overcoming such boundaries. By neutering the naturally occurring and pathologically benign Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) we have transformed what was once a virus, into a "pure" vector, taking full advantage of evolution's diligent enhancement of these genetic hijackers without introducing unacceptable danger to patients. We utilized the logically engineered, castrated form of AAV serotype 9 (recombinant AAV9/rAAV9) to act as a vehicle for two reporter genes, Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein (EGFP) and Firefly Luciferase (Fluc) with the goal of assessing and improving the efficiency of vector transduction in murine CNS. We found that rAAV9, when infused into the intrathecal space of mice is capable of extensive and intensive transduction of both neurons and astrocytes throughout the entire length of the SC as well as the hind regions of the brain (brainstem and cerebellum). We also found that efficiency of transduction was best in our highest dose groups, 1E+12 genome copies (GC) in Experiment 1 and 2E+12 GC in Experiment 2, both of which received rAAV9 particles via the two commercially available (100μL and the 200μL) ALZET® Osmotic Pump designs. Administering dosage higher than this directly into the intrathecal space was limited by the size of the pump reservoir and rAAV9 production titer. We are currently attempting to achieve a more complete CNS transduction by performing another experiment in which we place the pump cannula directly into the intracerebroventricular (ICV) space of the lateral ventricles. Our findings reveal that infusion of rAAV9 by intrathecal placed pump cannula is more effective than any other method tested in this study int the transduction of neurons and glial cells of adult&ndashmouse CNS. By elucidating a mode of delivery that maximizes the robustness of transduction efficiency, our results are a critical building block in designing a cure for the array of genetic-based diseases of the CNS, which are currently untreatabl

A Proposal for the Abolition of the Incompetency Plea

Though neither convicted of a crime nor civilly committed, many incompetent criminal defendants have been, in effect, serving life terms in state mental hospitals.\u27 A study of Massachusetts practice found, for example, that of all incompetent defendants committed to Bridgewater, the relevant state institution, more .. .had left by dying than by all other avenues combined.\u27 In Jackson v. Indiana, a unanimous Supreme Court ended the common practice of committing for an indeterminate time persons accused of crime but found incompetent to stand trial. Jackson held that an incompetency commitment cannot last longer than the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that [an incompetent criminal defendant will become competent] . . . in the foreseeable future and that continued commitment must be justified by progress toward that goal

Disorder in the Court: Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Constitution

Justice Robert Jackson once described a Supreme Court decision, from which he was dissenting, as more interesting to students of psychology and of the judicial processes than to students of constitutional law. \u27 His observation might equally apply to the Court\u27s recent rulings about physician-assisted suicide. Whatever their explanation-psychologically or jurisprudentially- the Justices\u27 conduct in this matter was surely unusual