Politics, Altruism, and the Definition of Poverty

The history of poverty lines suggests that they are determined jointly with poverty policy in the same political game. If the definition of poverty is endogenous, however, why do altruistic voters allow poverty to persist indefinitely, as seems to be the case in real life? A simple redistribution model shows that the persistence of poverty imposes fairly strong restrictions on the nature of voter altruism. Specifically, a voter's compassion for the poor must rise as the defined severity of the poverty problem worsens. Given such preferences, political actors face incentives to define poverty as a severe problem and then to use redistribution to reduce it significantly. There is no direct incentive to eliminate poverty, however; indeed, voters may prefer a state in which policy always attacks poverty vigorously and yet never defeats it. It follows that social policy should not be judged by its success in eliminating poverty, which may be directly counter to voter interests and therefore practically impossible. Rather, we should ask whether poverty policy provides enough help to people whom voters currently consider to be poor.     

The impact of genetic enhancement on equality

There apparently is a genuine possibility that genetic and non-genetic mechanisms eventually will be able to significantly enhance human capabilities and traits generally. Examining this prospect from the standpoint of equality considerations is one useful way to inquire into the effects of such enhancement technologies. Because of the nature and limitations of competing ideas of equality, we are inevitably led to investigate a very broad range of issues. This Article considers matters of distribution and withholding of scarce enhancement resources and links different versions of equality to different modes of distribution. It briefly addresses the difficulties of defining "enhancement" and "trait" and links the idea of a "merit attribute" to that of a "resource attractor." The role of disorder-based justifications is related to equality considerations, as is the possibility of the reduction or "objectification" of persons arising from the use of enhancement resources. Risks of intensified and more entrenched forms of social stratification are outlined. The Article also considers whether the notion of merit can survive, and whether the stability of democratic institutions based on a one-person, one-vote standard is threatened by attitude shifts given the new technological prospects. It refers to John Stuart Mill's "plural voting" proposal to illustrate one challenge to equal-vote democracy.     

The MacArthur Treatment Competence Study. II

This article reports the development and psychometric properties of three standardized and objectively scored measures, the MacArthur Treatment Competence Research Instruments. They were designed to assess abilities related conceptually to four legal standards for competence to consent to treatment: understanding, appreciation, rational manipulation (reasoning), and expressing a choice. Scoring reliability, internal consistency, intertest correlations, and test-retest correlations were examined with data from samples of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia, major depression, and ischemic heart disease, as well as matched non-ill community samples. The results indicate very good interscorer reliability and provide guidance for the use of the instruments and interpretation of their results in future research on patients' decisional abilities in treatment contexts.