When strong emotions are triggered by a risk, people show a remarkable tendency to neglect a small probability that the risk will actually come to fruition. Experimental evidence, involving electric shocks and arsenic, ...

We determined the frequency of antenatal corticosteroid use for mothers with threatened premature delivery in 1985, 1990, 1995, and 2000. We next compared published data to the surveyed recollections of 302 obstetricians ...

Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, ...

There have been many efforts to reconcile judicial review with democratic self-government. Some such efforts attempt to justify judicial review if and to the extent that it promotes self-rule. Active Liberty, by Justice ...

The concept of "irreversibility" plays a large role in the theory and practice of environmental protection. Indeed, the concept is explicit in some statements of the Precautionary Principle. But the idea of irreversibility ...

Moral intuitions operate in much the same way as other intuitions do; what makes the moral domain is distinctive is its foundations in the emotions, beliefs, and response tendencies that define indignation. The intuitive ...

Each government agency uses a uniform figure to measure the value of a statistical life (VSL). This is a serious mistake. The very theory that underlies current practice calls for far more individuation of the relevant ...

Current estimates of regulatory benefits are too low, and likely far too low, because they ignore a central point about valuation - namely, that people care not only about their absolute economic position, but also about ...

The Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas is best seen as a cousin to Griswold v. Connecticut, invalidating a ban on the use of contraception within marriage,and Reed v. Reed, invalidating a preference for men over ...

Do social and economic rights belong in a democratic constitution? Skeptics have wondered whether it is possible to constitutionalize such rights without imposing an untenable managerial responsibility on courts. In an ...