Rule 24 Notwithstanding: Why Article III Should Not Limit Intervention of Right

The Supreme Court recently decided in Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates, Inc. that intervenors of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) must demonstrate independent Article III standing when they pursue relief different from that requested by an original plaintiff. This decision resolved, in part, a decades-long controversy among the Courts of Appeals over the proper relationship between Rule 24 intervention and Article III standing that the Court first acknowledged in Diamond v. Charles. But the Court’s narrow decision in Town of Chester hardly disposed of the controversy, and Courts of Appeals are still free to require standing of defendant-intervenors and, it stands to reason, plaintiff-intervenors even if they do not pursue different relief. With this debate yet unresolved, this Note takes a less conventional approach. In addition to arguing that the Supreme Court’s precedents implicitly resolved this question before Town of Chester, this Note argues that the nature of judicial decisions raises two concerns that a liberal application of Rule 24(a)(2) would mitigate. First, this Note argues that stare decisis limits the right of litigants to be heard on the merits of their claims and defenses in a way that undermines the principles of due process. Second, this Note argues that the process of judicial decisionmaking is fraught with potential epistemic problems that can produce suboptimal legal rules. After considering these two concerns, this Note argues that Rule 24(a)(2) is a better and more practical way to mitigate these problems than are Rule 24(a)(2)’s alternatives

An Instrumental Theory of Speech Acts

In this paper I present a theory of speech acts with two parts: an account of the normativity of speech acts and a method for individuating them. The first part holds that instrumental rationality gives speech acts normative force. I have in mind a simple kind of means-end normativity—given that a speaker has a desire to φ, she has an instrumental reason to adopt the appropriate means to φ. When we perform speech acts, we take part in linguistic conventions. In doing so, our desires interact with those conventions in ways that generate speech-act-specific instrumental reasons for us. For example, when I make a promise, the act of promising generates a new instrumental reason for me to follow through on that promise. This is because if I don’t, I will be liable for sanctions like blame. Since I don’t want to be liable for blame, I have a reason to keep my promise. The second part of the theory holds that we should distinguish speech acts by their normative properties—the kinds of instrumental reasons they generate for the speaker. I argue that two speech acts token distinct act types just in case they differ in the kind of instrumental reasons they generate for the speaker. For example, I argue that promises, oaths, and vows are the same act type because they generate the same kind of reason to follow through. What results is a new way of taxonomizing speech acts. I call this the Instrumental theory of speech acts, or Instrumentalism

Why you shouldn’t serve meat at your next catered event

Much has been written about the ethics of eating meat. Far less has been said about the ethics of serving meat. In this paper I argue that we often shouldn’t serve meat, even if it is morally permissible for individuals to purchase and eat meat. Historically, the ethical conversation surrounding meat has been limited to individual diets, meat producers, and government actors. I argue that if we stop the conversation there, then the urgent moral problems associated with industrial animal agriculture will go unsolved. Instead, we must also consider the important but overlooked role that midsized institutions play in addressing major collective problems. I focus mostly on the harms that industrial animal agriculture inflicts on humans, animals, and the environment, but the discussion bears on other global issues like climate change. Institutional choices are an underexplored avenue for driving social change—their power and influence outstrip individual actions, and they can shape behavior in modest ways that promote social goods. Here I highlight the paradigmatic case of catered events and suggest three ways that institutional actors can reduce meat consumption and shape cultural attitudes surrounding meat: large impact decisions, subtly shaping incentives, and consolidating burdens

A song turned sideways would sound as sweet

Markosian presents an argument against certain theories of time based on the aesthetic value of music. He argues that turning a piece of music sideways in time destroys its intrinsic value, which would not be possible if the Spacetime Thesis were true. In this paper I show that sideways music poses no problems for any theory of time by demonstrating that turning a piece of music sideways does not affect its intrinsic value. I do this by appealing to spatial analogies that highlight the similarities between spatial and temporal rotations

Why Your Next Catered Event Should Not Include Meat

Much has been written about the ethics of eating meat. Far less has been said about the ethics of serving meat. In this paper I argue that we often shouldn’t serve meat, even if it is morally permissible for individuals to purchase and eat meat. I focus on catered events to highlight the important but overlooked role that midsized institutions play in addressing collective problems, like the harms associated with industrial animal agriculture. Historically, the ethical conversation surrounding meat has been limited to individual diets, meat producers, and government actors. Institutional choices are an underexplored avenue for driving social change—their power and influence outstrip individual actions, and they can shape behavior in modest ways that promote social goods. Here I highlight three ways that institutional actors can reduce meat consumption and shape cultural attitudes surrounding meat: large impact decisions, subtly shaping incentives, and spreading burdens out over many people.Master of Art

Patterns of Maturity, Seasonal Migration, and Spawning of Atlantic Croaker in the Western Gulf of Mexico

Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) are one of the more common finfishes in the Gulf of Mexico. They are a significant component of Gulf bait fisheries and an important midtrophic component of nearshore food webs. In this study, life-history parameters associated with growth, maturity, and seasonal migration were estimated for Atlantic croaker in Texas and integrated into previously described data throughout the rest of the species range. The major findings of this work were the following: (1) a majority (\u3e76%) of age-1 female Atlantic croaker were sexually mature; (2) egress of adults from inshore habitats took place in late fall (Oct./Nov.) in consecutive years (2002 and 2003); (3) egress of adults was predictably coincident with declining growth after age-1 and the onset of sexual maturity; and (4) ingress of juvenile Atlantic croaker into inshore nursery grounds began in early winter and progressed through early summer, but a majority of recruits appeared in a short span between Feb. and April. Seasonal patterns of migration of both adult and juvenile Atlantic croaker are consistent with those described in other parts of the species’ range and imply offshore spawning in the fall and winter followed by year-round inshore development of postlarvae and juveniles. Given the importance of inshore residency of juvenile Atlantic croaker, abundance estimates from fishery-independent sampling were scaled up to system-wide estimates of juvenile abundance in two prominent Texas estuaries and used to qualitatively assess the potential impacts of the commercial fishery on the inshore segment of the population

Passively transferred human NMO-IgG exacerbates demyelination in mouse experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

BACKGROUND: Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a devastating inflammatory disorder of the optic nerves and spinal cord characterized by frequently recurring exacerbations of humoral inflammation. NMO is associated with the highly specific NMO-IgG biomarker, an antibody that binds the aquaporin-4 water channel. Aquaporin-4 is present on glial endfeet in the central nervous system (CNS). In humans, the NMO-IgG portends more frequent exacerbations and a worse long-term clinical outcome. METHODS: We tested the longer-term outcome of mice with EAE injected with NMO-IgG and followed them for 60 days. Clinical exams and pathology of the spinal cord and optic nerves were compared to mice that received control human IgG. RESULTS: Passively transferred human NMO-IgG leads to more severe neurology disability over two months after onset of disease. Clinical worsening is associated with an increased concentration of large demyelinating lesions primarily to subpial AQP4-rich regions of the spinal cord. CONCLUSIONS: NMO-IgG is pathogenic in the context of EAE in mice

Molecular rotational conformation controls the rate of singlet fission and triplet decay in pentacene dimers

Three pentacene dimers have been synthesized to investigate the effect of molecular rotation and rotational conformations on singlet fission (SF). In all three dimers, the pentacene units are linked by a 1,4-diethynylphenylene spacer that provides almost unimpeded rotational freedom between the pentacene- and phenylene-subunits in the parent dimer. Substituents on the phenylene spacer add varying degrees of steric hindrance that restricts both the rotation and the equilibrium distribution of different conformers; the less restricted conformers exhibit faster SF and more rapid subsequent triplet-pair recombination. Furthermore, the rotational conformers have small shifts in their absorption spectra and this feature has been used to selectively excite different conformers and study the resulting SF. Femtosecond transient absorption studies at 100 K reveal that the same dimer can have orders of magnitude faster SF in a strongly coupled conformer compared to a more weakly coupled one. Measurements in polystyrene further show that the SF rate is nearly independent of viscosity whereas the triplet pair lifetime is considerably longer in a high viscosity medium. The results provide insight into design criteria for maintaining high initial SF rate while suppressing triplet recombination in intramolecular singlet fission