Plausible Premises Research Articles

The Zeitgeist of Perspectives, ab origine

THE ZEITGEIST OF PERSPECTIVES, AB ORIGINE BENJAMIN BORETZ (Where we were . . .) OMPOSERS ARE THINKERS. Composing is thinking. The experience, the very being of music is inextricably interdependent with the entire range of a person’s mental interior; the critical individuality of each person requires that each person pursue and evolve and articulate their own personal thinking in and about music, to have it adequately as composer, performer, listener. Music has evolved overt complexities and musical culture has developed acute anxieties which force engaged people to consciously reflect and articulate and work out their issues in extramusical languages. Deconstructing conventions to uncover their cognitive opacities, and the musical consequences of their applications, has become a creative—a moral—imperative as well as a path to an artistic breakthrough; hearing old music as new, imagining new music C 10 History of Perspectives arising “from the shell of the old”, making “music which invents the world from scratch”, by some cognitive–imaginative path determined by one’s own philosophy of personhood, composerhood, history . . . composers, musicians, are driven to reflection and utterance by these musical urgencies and aesthetic visions, and by their habitation in an intellectual and artistic world much wider than that of music alone. Including the self-arrogation of responsibility for not only one’s own work but for one’s entire musical universe—for all the world’s music, and even for the relevant human interactions within the social spaces of music making. It has become indispensable to the work of speakers of nonverbal expressive languages to redefine the deepest-lying substructures of musical awareness and being, as expression, as thought, as ideology, as a conscious fusion of intellectual challenge, cognitive clarity, conceptual depth, existential engagement, social enlightenment. Mindsets like these are what made it seem plausible to a group of young composers to imagine creating a magazine written and edited by people like them, first-order practitioners of the arts they were discussing. And these mindsets, taken all together, are the logic of how the Perspectives magazine groped and stumbled its way through its first 20 years: Perspectives was born into a musical world in which these were plausible premises; and they were, at least implicitly, the premises by which the evolving contents of Perspectives were initially conceptualized by the editors. But the almost instantaneous turnaround from an uminaginably radical collection of mindbending discourses to a model for lookalike writings designed to be published and perished produced an internal cultural–intellectual crisis after the second year of publication (probably the imprimatur of the Princeton University Press, actually the hired gun rather than the lawgiver of this operation, and the very classy distinguished scholarly-journal look of the magazine, were greatly culpable in this development). In response, the editors, reduced to one by that time, concluded that permanent revolution was the only possible editorial policy for a magazine devoted to practitioners of cutting-edge original creative composition; but that such militancy, to be serious, had to be inclusive rather than sectarian: that issue alone explains many of the “projects” and “new directions” visible during that time—and manifestly in the 30 years that have followed as well, but in a much less superheated and psychodramatic register. For, for better or worse, Perspectives for its first 22 years was a “cause” and an “issue”, a sore-thumb phenomenon that didn’t fit any particular niche that pre-existed within the musical world: it was making it up as it went along, and people reacted accordingly. So of The Zeitgeist of Perspectives, ab origine 11 course people attributed all kinds of familiar motives to the choices manifested by the magazine—most of which were in fact serendipitous, and mostly guided by a quest for possibly available adventure, in the spirit of those mindsets. As I wrote (in the magazine) to Ben Johnston, when he complained about the scarcity of writing about John Cage in Perspectives, had we received a text about John Cage of the quality of his letter, it would have been published forthwith (we did, early on, come up with a nifty article on indeterminate notation by David Behrman, and a playful riff on “the changing composer-performer relation” by Lukas...

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Scepticism, perceptual knowledge, and doxastic responsibility

Arguments for scepticism about perceptual knowledge are often said to have intuitively plausible premises. In this discussion I question this view in relation to an argument from ignorance and argue that the supposed persuasiveness of the argument depends on debatable background assumptions about knowledge or justification. A reasonable response to scepticism has to show there is a plausible epistemological perspective that can make sense of our having perceptual knowledge. I present such a perspective. In order give a more satisfying response to scepticism, we need also to consider the standing of background beliefs. This is required since the recognitional abilities that enable us to have perceptual knowledge are informed by, or presuppose, a picture or conception of the world the correctness of which we have not ascertained. The question is how, in the face of this, to make sense of responsible belief-formation. In addressing this problem I make a suggestion about the standing of certain crucial beliefs linking appearances with membership of kinds.

Delirium treatment: an unmet challenge

Rivastigmine, a cholinesterase inhibitor, has been used to treat delirium in elderly patients with stroke.1 A biologically plausible premise—that impaired cholinergic transmission might either cause or worsen delirium—led to a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial by Maarten van Eijk and colleagues2 in The Lancet in which they added rivastigmine or placebo to usual treatment of patients in intensive care. The trial was halted at 104 patients by the drug safety and monitoring board (DSMB) because of increased mortality (12/54 in the rivastigmine group, 4/50 in the placebo group; p=0·07) and a worse outcome.

Niklas Luhmann and the sociology of the constitution

This article argues that, from the first emergence of sociology as a distinct discipline, the sociology of constitutions, as a body of critical responses to the facts/norms dichotomy at the core of Enlightenment constitutionalism, has been an important but rather submerged area of sociological inquiry. Currently, there are unmistakeable signs that constitutional sociology is being consolidated as a distinct sub-discipline of theoretical sociology as a whole. This is evident in particular in the body of sociological constitutionalism associated with post-Luhmannian systems analysis, which focuses especially on the constitutions of world society. However, the article argues that the plausible premises for a fully sociological approach to constitutions and their normative functions of legitimation have not yet been established, and it offers a normative re-reading of Luhmann’s own theory as a foundation for a constitutional sociology.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Vagueness: Supervaluationism

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Vagueness: Supervaluationism

An Inverse Belief–Bias Effect

Two studies examined the hypothesis that accepting false premises as true in order to make the modus ponens (MP) inference requires inhibition of contradictory knowledge. Study 1 presented both MP and affirmation of the consequent (AC) inferences using either false, but plausible premises or completely unbelievable premises, with standard logical constructions using either an evaluation or a production paradigm. The rate of acceptance of the MP inferences was significantly greater with unbelievable premises than with plausible premises, in both evaluation and production, while no such effect was observed with the AC inferences. Study 2 used a computer-generated presentation allowing for measures of response times. Participants who tended to accept the MP inference with unbelievable premises took longer to do so with plausible premises than with unbelievable premises. Participants who tended to reject the MP inference showed an opposite pattern. In both studies, the observed effects were not shown for the AC inferences. The overall pattern of results was consistent with the hypothesis that inhibition is a key component of logical reasoning with false premises.

Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist by Francis Cairns

BOOK REVIEWS Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist. By FRANCIS CAIRNS. Cam bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi + 492. Cloth, $100.00. ISBN 978-0-521-86457-2. Francis Cairns is one of themost recognizable voices inClassics. He is a scholar of immense intelligence, deep learning, imaginative scope and dogged determination. Yet he often employs a style of argumentation that begins from a plausible premise and then seeks to hammer away on that initial intuition as an explanatory key until he reaches conclusions that ultimately are neither convincing nor necessarily useful. It is one of the paradoxes of a brilliant mind that it often becomes so enthralled with the explanatory power of its own insights that it becomes incapable of seeing or evaluating counter evidence, but instead builds ever more elaborate structures that finally implode under their own weight and lead the reader to ques tion even what remains of value in the initial intuition. Indeed, often when I read C, I am reminded of no one somuch asMartin Bernal. Needless to say, what follows will not be a glowing review of C/s new book, yet it is not at all the product of contempt or a lack of profound respect for a scholar of obvious giftswho has toiled in the vineyards of philology for four decades and made many real contri butions. Under these circumstances, I feel that this book is owed the favor of a genuine engagement and counterargument. What follows, then,will be a step-by-step analysis of some major moments in C/s text and of his style of argumentation in an attempt to show pre cisely how such brilliance can go badly off the rails. C/s book contains essentially three parts. The first is an attempt to reconstruct the biography and family connections of Propertius, based largely upon epigraphic evidence from Assisi. Much of the material here is highly speculative, but it is of genuine interest. C. demonstrates that the Propertii were a prominent family from the region, and that there is every reason to believe that they were related by marriage to theVolcacii Tulli, who in turn had close rela tions with theMaecenates. Much of this goes a long way toward explaining how Propertius came to join the inner circle ofMaecenas, a social position that has struckmore than one reader as odd and into which Horace at least never seems tohave fully accepted the elegist. The next two parts build on this initial reconstruction and, as is unfortunately typical of the present work, often seem to accept as proven factwhat is initially, rightfully presented as a speculative re construction. This slide from heuristic speculation to a set of proven 276 BOOK REVIEWS premises from which one can deduce firm conclusions is typical of the argumentation throughout the book. Part two is essentially a meditation on Gallus and his role in theMonobiblos. Part three at tempts to prove that since Propertius accepted the patronage of Maecenas, all readings that perceive a moment of subversive irony in the Propertian text are a priori ruled out of order. Iwill now take up each of these arguments in turn. The contention thatGallus is a central presence in theMonobiblos is of course nothing new. Ithad already been extensively treated by Skutsch (1906) and Ross (1975); more recently, ithas been taken up by Janan (2001), myself (2004), and in countless articles and book reviews. C. cites from Skutsch and Ross extensively and essentially seeks to extend their insights. Janan and I are cited when we agree with him, but ignored when we disagree. All other viewpoints on elegy or the Propertian Monobiblos are systematically excluded. The result is five chapters devoted toGallus and theMonobiblos, two de voted solely to "Gallan metrics/' inwhich one would never guess that important books on elegy had been written by R.O.A.M. Lyne, Duncan Kennedy, Ellen Greene, Sharon James or Paul Veyne. The Propertius that emerges from this reading is greatly impov erished and the Gallus grotesquely inflated. The unwary reader could indeed quickly forget that barely 12 fragmentary lines survive from Gallus. To his credit, C. presses these texts for all they are worth. He notes...

On predictions in retro-causal interpretations of quantum mechanics

The curious correlations between distant events in quantum phenomena suggest the existence of non-local influences. Indeed, as John Bell demonstrated in his celebrated theorem, granted some plausible premises any quantum theory will predict the existence of such non-local influences. One of the theorem's premises is that the probability distribution of states that systems may assume is independent of the measurements that they undergo at a later time. Retro-causal interpretations of quantum mechanics postulate backward influences from measurement events to the state of systems at an earlier time, and accordingly violate this premise. We argue that retro-causal interpretations predict the existence of closed causal loops, which pose challenges for the predictive and explanatory power of these interpretations.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE SOCIAL MARGINAL COST OF PUBLIC FUNDS: THE CASE OF THE MELTZER-RICHARD ECONOMY

I. INTRODUCTION The marginal cost of public (MCF) is defined as the full cost to the private sector of raising an additional dollar of tax revenue, including deadweight loss or excess burden of taxation imposed on taxpayers. Much of the theoretical literature on the MCF is cast in the framework of a one-consumer economy. However, the main reason why we have distortionary taxes in the first place is precisely because of the need for redistribution or the existence of consumers with heterogeneity. In view of this inconsistency, several papers, including Dahlby (1998) and Sandmo (1998), have recently started addressing the so-called social marginal cost of public funds (SMCF) in models with heterogenous consumers. (1) These papers highlight how the redistributive concern may alter the calculation of the SMCF. (2) In previous studies on the MCF or SMCF, the existing of status quo tax system has been assumed to be either arbitrary or optimal. (3) It is arguable, however, that the existing tax system is neither arbitrary nor optimal but rather represents a political equilibrium. The approach adopted by Hettich and Winer (1999) and Persson and Tabellini (2000) corroborates this argument. In surveying the political economy of public finance, the authors of these two books explicitly portrayed public policy as the equilibrium outcome of some specified political process. In this note, we study the SMCF issue on the basis of the plausible premise that the existing tax system itself represents a political equilibrium. The calculation of the SMCF is basically a normative exercise. The premise that the existing tax system is a policy outcome in political equilibrium will enable us to exploit the positive property of political equilibrium in this normative exercise. As an illustration of our approach, we revisit the political economy of redistributive taxation as set out in Meltzer and Richard (1981) (hereafter, M-R). The M-R model holds a prominent position in the redistribution literature and has been elaborated and extended in many directions (Persson and Tabellini 2000, Part II). (4) Section II overviews the M-R model. Sections III and IV derive and discuss the SMCF in the M-R economy. An interesting feature of our finding is that the degree of income inequality as measured by the ratio of mean to median income can play an important role in estimating the SMCF and judging whether the level of redistribution is excessive or inadequate. II. THE M-R MODEL A. Economy Consideran economy in which there are n (1) [u.sup.i] = u([c.sup.i],[l.sup.i]), i = 1, ..., n. This utility function is assumed to be smooth and possess the usual properties. The income tax system consists of two parameters: a marginal tax rate t and a lump-sum grant a. The tax system pays the lump-sum grant or demogrant a to each individual and finances the payment by imposing the marginal tax rate t on all earned income. (5) The budget constraint facing individual i is: (2) [c.sup.i] = (1 - t)[w.sup.i][L.sup.i] + a, i = 1, ..., n. where [L.sup.i] denotes the labor supply with [L.sup.i] + [l.sup.i] = 1. From Equations (1) and (2), we can derive the indirect utility function: (3) [v.sup.i] = v((1 - t)[w.sup.i], a) = u((1 - t)[w.sup.i][L.sup.i] + a, 1 - [L.sup.i]), i = 1, ..., n. It is assumed that the government budget is balanced. Denoting per capita pretax income by y, we then have: (4) ty = a where y = [summation][y.sup.i]/n with [y.sup.i] = [w.sup.i][L.sup.i]. B. Political Economy The preferences of individuals qua voters over income tax policy are represented by the indirect utility function (3). …

Parity, Clumpiness and Rational Choice

Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central premise of the argument is that value is choice-guiding. If one object is more valuable than another, then it is not permitted to choose the less valuable object; and if two objects are equally valuable it is permitted to choose either of them; and if two objects are on a par or belong to the same clump it is also permitted to choose either of them.

The (near) necessity of alternate possibilities for moral responsibility

Harry Frankfurt has famously criticized the principle of alternate possibilities—the principle that an agent is morally responsible for performing some action only if able to have done otherwise than to perform it—on the grounds that it is possible for an agent to be morally responsible for performing an action that is inevitable for the agent when the reasons for which the agent lacks alternate possibilities are not the reasons for which the agent has acted. I argue that an incompatibilist about determinism and moral responsibility can safely ignore so-called “Frakfurt-style cases” and continue to argue for incompatibilism on the grounds that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise. My argument relies on a simple—indeed, simplistic—weakening of the principle of alternate possibilities that is explicitly designed to be immune to Frankfurt-style criticism. This alternative to the principle of alternate possibilities is so simplistic that it will no doubt strike many readers as philosophically fallow. I argue that it is not. I argue that the addition of one highly plausible premise allows for the modified principle to be employed in an argument for incompatibilism that begins with the observation that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise. On the merits of this argument I conclude that deterministic moral responsibility is impossible and that Frankfurt’s criticism of the principle of alternate possibilities—even if successful to that end—may be safely ignored.

A Puzzle About Colors

I propose a description of one aspect of the philosophical problem about the ontology of colors by formulating and motivating six plausible premises that seem to be hard to deny in isolation but that are jointly incoherent. I briefly sketch a solution and comment on the views presented in this volume from the perspective of the puzzle.

Interaction between entropy imbalance and superconductivity in U1−xThxBe13

For U1−xThxBe13 (x≲5at.%) and particularly for U0.97Th0.03Be13 a strong increase of the effective mass or, equivalently, of the renormalized density of states at EF is expected below the superconducting transition temperature Tc≈0.6K, since this heavy-fermion system has not yet entered into a Fermi liquid state (C/T=const.). With a few plausible premises it is possible to calculate the effect of this increasing density of states with decreasing temperature on the superconducting specific heat below Tc without knowledge of a microscopic model just by using thermodynamic arguments. Using a straight forward assumption for the temperature dependence of m∗, the unusual shape of the specific heat between the upper and the lower transition of U0.97Th0.03Be13 can be reproduced quantitatively assuming weak coupling, isotropic BCS-superconductivity.

Reflexivity, Contradiction, Paradox and M. C. Escher

The paradoxes that have been studied by philosophers and logicians are arguments that lead from plausible premises to impossible conclusions. For example, in the Liar Paradox, the assumption that “This statement is false” is either true or false leads to the conclusion that it is both true and false. Depictions of sc-called “impossible objects” in the late works of M. C. Escher are visually paradoxical. There are deep similarities between visual and logico-semantic paradoxes. In the case of the visual paradoxes, knowledge of various means of representing distance enables us to explain how the paradoxical effect is achieved. A novel approach to solving the Liar and other logico-semantic paradoxes consists of coming to understand how the impossibility of their conclusions arises by means analogous to those by which visually impossible objects are produced.

Undermining and Admissibility

Our best physical theories seem to tell us that the world is an objectively chancy place. Some possible futures have some chance of being actual, and this is the most that can be said. More knowledge about the way the world is now and what the laws are won't yield complete information about what will be. Of course, our best theories may be wrong, but they are not wrong merely because they advert to the notion of objective chance. Quantum mechanics may be incorrect because it postulates entities or properties that there aren't; it might even be wrong because it makes no sense; but it isn't wrong because the notion of chance it so freely makes use of makes no sense. Whether our best theories are to be believed or not, they force upon us the conceptual possibility of objectively chancy events. Given this, one might wonder whether the totality of facts about the world which aren't about chance determines the chances, whether matters of chance supervene on matters of non-chance. We do not learn about the chances directly, rather we make hypotheses about what the chances are based on information about relative frequencies. Induction justifies us in thinking that the relative frequencies we have observed will continue throughout world history. But if supervenience fails we have reason-in addition to general worries about i.nduction-to be sceptical concerning our knowledge of the chances. For if supervenience fails, the correctness of our views on what there is and how it behaves won't suffice to determine the chances. So one reason to hope for a successful reductive analysis of chance is that it would show that chance does supervene on matters of non-chance. One way that matters of chance might supervene on matters of non-chance is through Humean supervenience, the view that all supervenes on local matters of particular fact. David Lewis is the view's architect, but he has also given reason to think that chance cannot supervene in a Humean manner (Lewis 1994). He begins with a vague worry that does not itself force the Humean to give up hope. However, by adding an extremely plausible premise concerning the relationship between chance and credence, he turns the worry into a proper argument. It has gone unnoticed that the trouble Lewis raises is not restricted to Humean reductions of chance. The argument-if sound-destroys the hope of virtually any reductive analysis of chance. Indeed, the argument even raises difficulties for some views according to which chance is brute and unanalysable. The primary purposes of this paper are to show how broad the scope of the argument is, and then to offer a response.

Of Caleb's Guilt and Godwin's Truth: Ideology and Ethics in Caleb Williams

Of Caleb’s Guilt and Godwin’s Truth: Ideology and Ethics in Caleb Williams Gary Handwerk For a moralizing solution, like any essentializing gesture, serves the ideological function of masking the more difficult cultural and ethicopolitical issues. —Dominick LaCapra, History, Politics, and the Novel I Despite a recent resurgence of interest in his life and in certain of his works, William Godwin remains an elusive and little-noticed figure of English literary and intellectual history. Known as much for his personal links to other figures—to Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, or Shelley—as for his own writing, Godwin remains largely unread except by specialists in the Jacobin period. At best, other critics may identify Godwin with the eccentric anarchism of his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice or the Gothic histrionics of Caleb Williams. Even if one gives full credit to work by more recent critics, literary criticism is still very far from doing justice to his work as a whole or overcoming long-nurtured suspicions about the quality and significance of much of his writing. It may in fact be true that Godwin’s novels show flashes of dramatic intensity rather than any sustained technical brilliance; his imaginative gifts may indeed be somewhat narrow in scope. Yet because literary history has often relied upon evaluative criteria that fit Godwin’s fictional practice poorly, it has tended to reinforce the marginalizing of his work accomplished by the anti-Jacobin reaction in England. That tendency seems all the more regrettable in that Godwin’s work has tremendous bearing on issues central to contemporary criticism, such as the relation of ideology to ethics in literature, or the relationship of subjectivity to interpretation and to history. Its narrative anomalies are themselves instructive about the complexity of the problems with which Godwin struggled in trying to shape an aesthetic form adequate to his political and ethical concerns. To be sure, the past few years have seen a renaissance of Godwin studies that has produced some outstanding analytical work—a renaissance traceable to the seminal work of Burton Pollin on the intellectual [End Page 939] coherence of Godwin’s ideas, to David McCracken’s work on Godwin’s literary theories and reedition of Caleb Williams, as well as to the discovery in 1966 of the original, previously unknown ending to Caleb Williams. 1 Since then, however, critical attention has focused almost exclusively on Political Justice and Caleb Williams, virtually neglecting Godwin’s other fiction and essays. 2 That focus, though regrettable for the narrow image it gives us of Godwin’s lifetime work, does rest on plausible premises, since much of the fascination of Godwin’s writing lies in his attempt to reconcile his vision of justice with highly realistic portraits of political psychology, a struggle most evident in the proximity of these two works to each other. Any reestimation of Godwin as a novelist, then, needs to begin by turning our attention back to Caleb Williams. Of particular interest is the way in which Godwin’s narrative choices, especially the revised ending, provide a developing commentary on his political values that takes him beyond the assumptions of Political Justice. My primary argument here is that the tendency of Caleb Williams, and indeed of all of Godwin’s fiction, runs fundamentally contrary to the explicit political assumptions and expectations of Political Justice —but, for that very reason, they need to be read in a complementary fashion as parts of a comprehensive perspective. Though Godwin may well have begun this novel hoping to exemplify his political ideals in dramatic form, his own narrative and psychological realism transformed the fiction into a much more sceptical mediation on the possibilities for political amelioration through reason. His careful attention to the working of ideology in an individual mind, Caleb’s, led him to complicate his rationalist model of political justice and political change, anticipating the internal critique of his own political theory that comes more and more into evidence in his subsequent writing. To perceive this, however, we need to bear in mind the diverse tendencies present in the novel, and in fact, to read past the moral overtly proffered by Caleb himself. 3 If we attend to its multiple resonances, Godwin’s...

Worlds Enough For Time

Time passes. Time passes. This is surely the most important thing about time. Yet it is also the most mysterious. The more you think about the passage of time, the less coherent it seems. I will describe one way we might try to make sense of the passing of time. What I propose, more precisely, is an account of what it is that we believe time to be like. I will not give an argument to prove that we are correct in our conception of time as something which passes. Einstein's theory of relativity suggests that, as a matter of fact, our naive conception of time is deeply mistaken. I will not argue that the folk theory of time can be defended against physics: only that it can be defended from purely philosophical objections, from allegations of internal incoherence, from arguments which seem to show that folk theory can be shown on its own terms to be inconsistent. I have long been intrigued by J.M.E. McTaggart's notorious argument for the Unreality of Time (see McTaggart, 1908, 1927, 1934, and Broad, 1938, for a full exposition and critique, and Dummett, 1960 for a sympathetic exposition and defense, and Gale, 1967 for bibliographic leads). On my reading, the argument hinges on two plausible premises. The first is that it is one of the essential properties of time that it is something which passes. The second is that the notion of the passage of time is incoherent, and involves either a logical contradiction, or a vicious circularity, or a vicious regress. Together, these premises seem to entail that time is unrealthat there is no time, that nothing ever really occurs before or after anything else, but only appears to do so. Many are less bold than McTaggart. They think time is real. Yet they have a hard time dispelling the notion that time is essentially something which passes. So they search for some watered down, logically consistent sense in which time can coherently be described

Protecting Autonomy in Organ Procurement Procedures: Some Overlooked Issues

Organ procurement personnel in the United States appear to be unaware that the standard practice of asking the surviving families of all classes of potential donors (declared and undeclared) for permission to remove organs and tissues from these individuals is inconsistent with the provisions of most state UAGAs. The majority of these Acts vest first authority concerning the donation of body parts in those individuals whose organs and tissues are needed and judged medically acceptable for removal and transfer. These laws do not give families the right to veto the positive written declarations of dead relatives who have authorized the posthumous taking of their own body parts. Hence, seeking family consent for the removal of body parts from registered donors is unnecessary and inappropriate according to the provisions of most state UAGAs. The primary authority given to individuals under this legislation to control the taking of organs and tissues from their bodies after death arguably rests on the plausible premise that a person's body is his or her property in a significant sense. This gives individuals first authority to control the posthumous disposition of their body parts. Under current retrieval practice, however, families of deceased registered donors are seldom informed about the paramount rights of these individuals and are led to believe that they have final legal authority over the disposition of organs and tissues from these expatients. This is, in effect, an unwitting but nonetheless serious "sellout" of the moral-legal rights of these potential donors. I have attempted to show the weakness of one plausible line of argument for the claim that current retrieval practice with its family priority orientation ought to be continued in unamended form, irrespective of what the law says. I suggested an alternative procedure for approaching the surviving families of registered donors which I believe offers a socially acceptable compromise among three values which enter into competition at the death of a declared donor: (1) saving the maximum number of lives of ESOD victims, (2) respecting and protecting the rights of declared donors, and (3) honoring the needs of the grieving family.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

The moral significance of the genetic relation.

Our ordinary moral attitudes give a prominent place to the principle that each person ought specially to care for any child who is his or her genetic offspring. From this principle of genetic-parental responsibility and other plausible premises, we can derive the principle that each person has the right to control the genetic use of his or her own genes. But there are competing principles of parental responsibility that require consideration. Principles of nurture are among the important competitors. Also, the view that a woman has the right to control her own body for reproductive purposes may be based on a principle that denies the genetic-parental principle.