8 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2022
    1. assumptions are evident in the thinking that assumes that implied consent will reach the parts that generic consent does not reach; but proponents of specific consent procedures also assume that consent travels beyond the propositions to which it is explicitly and literally given in signing a consent form. Yet strictly speaking, consent (like other propositional atti tudes) is not transitive. I may consent to A, and A may entail B, but if I am blind to the entailment I need not consent to B. Consent is said to be opaque because it does not shadow logical equivalence or other logical implications: when I consent to a proposition its logical implications need not be transparent to me. Transitivity fails for propositional attitudes. Consent and other propositional attitudes also do not shadow most causal connections. I may consent to C, and it may be well known that C causes D, but if I am ignorant of the causal link I need not consent to D. Again, transitivity fails for propositional attitudes. When I consent to a proposition describing an intended transaction, neither its logical implications nor the causal links between transactions falling under it and subse quent events need be transparent to me; a fortiori I may not consent to them. Events at Alder Hey illustrate the opacity of consent. Some parents consented to removal of tissue, but objected that they had not consented to the removal of organs?although, of course, organs are composed of tissues. They did not agree that their consent to removal of tissue implied their consent to the removal of organs. As a point of logic the parents were right. These simple facts create a dilemma. The real limits of patient and donor comprehension suggest that it is unreason able to seek consent for every detail of a proposed treatment, or of a proposed research protocol, or of a proposed use of tissues. Yet the logic of propositional attitudes suggests that we cannot simply assume that implied consent will spread from one proposition to another, or from one proposition to the expected consequences of that which it covers, making any further consent unnecessary. There are many ways of skinning this cat. I conclude by sketching one approach that I think plausible.

      propositional attitude SHOULD ONLY BE LEFT PARAGRAPH. Also, there's a bug in the code here.

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  2. Jan 2022

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  3. Oct 2020
    1. The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

      Controlling the reactions of the majority would be way to hard because everyone has opinions and you can't stop people from having opinions.

    2. It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

      removing minorites is injust.

    3. If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

      The majority will not always understand or agree with the minority but this will insure that justice is served.

    4. The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.

      We can remove minorities but we can change how the majority reacts.

    5. AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a wellconstructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

      In plain English, this paragraph means that minority groups will always be at risk in a demoncracy because the majoritty opinion always prefails.

    6. No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

      I think this paragraph is saying that no one can be their own judge because everyone, unless you're super lawful will always avocate out of self-interest. To remedy this, Madison preposed anyone who is convicted gets a lawyer.