Indefensible Self-Defense Argument

Gun Control and the Self-Defense Argument.1

A key issue in the debate over gun control is how it will affect the relative incentives of criminals and law-abiding citizens to acquire guns. We propose a simple model of interaction of criminals and lawabiding citizens as a contest where the parties arm themselves in order to improve their chances of having an upper hand in an encounter. We study the effect of various gun control policies on...

A Defense of the Deprivation Argument

Some believe that abortion is wrong because it harms the fetus by depriving it of its future. Dean Stretton rejects his argument. He claims that the harm of death is not a sufficient source of the right to life and that, even if it were, a fetus cannot be seriously harmed by being deprived of its future. In this article I critically assess Stretton’s arguments for each of these claims and find ...

An Assessment of the Missile Defense Agency’s “Endgame Success” Argument

Strong and weak forms of abstract argument defense

Extended abstract frameworks separate conflicts and preference between arguments. These elements are combined to induce argument defeat relations. A proper defeat is consequence of preferring an argument in a conflicting pair, while blocking defeat is consequence of incomparable or equivalent-in-strength conflicting arguments. As arguments interact with different strengths, the quality of sever...

Self defense by plants.

Plants have evolved elegant and complex chemical systems to defend themselves against the pathogens and herbivores that attempt to consume them. The current exponential growth in interest and experimentation in this area provided the motivation to hold this colloquium. Some plant chemical defenses are constitutive, providing built-in physical or biological barriers against the invading organism...