Blockchain Papers

changzheng zhou, ziqing zhou

A decentralized system faces a fundamental governance tension: its governancerules are themselves amendable, which means that the meta‑rules stipulating howrules are modified are also at risk of being revised. Starting from the paradox ofself‑amendment uncovered by legal philosopher Peter Suber, this paper argues thatthis logical dilemma is not a purely philosophical speculation but a structural difficulty that repeatedly arises in the practice of blockchain constitutionalism. Underthe tenet that“code is law,”code‑based rules bear the meta‑governance functionsthat in a constitutional structure ought to be carried by constitutional provisions,yet code logically cannot set an insurmountable boundary for its own amendmentauthority. In response, this paper proposes a layered meta‑constraint security architecture: meta‑constraints are divided into an unmodifiable layer of logical constants, a layer of cognitive virtues formulated through community constitutionalprocedures, and a layer of value homeostasis adjusted through public deliberationand evolution; the trustworthiness of meta‑constraints is anchored in the logicalphysical isolation provided by trusted hardware roots. Through the institutionalization of procedures for identifying and attributing meta‑constraints, this paperdemonstrates how fork‑exit‑based social verification, cognition‑testing through independent auditing, and physical anchoring through multi‑key witness mechanismstogether constitute a mutually independent multi‑layered defense system. By examining the 21‑million‑coin supply cap of Bitcoin, the Ethereum EIP governanceprocess, and the constitutional crisis of The DAO incident as case studies, thispaper reveals the partial instantiation patterns of the three‑tier meta‑constraintarchitecture in existing systems and their failure boundaries. The paper concludesthat the long‑term security of a decentralized system ultimately depends not on theByzantine‑fault‑tolerance strength of its consensus algorithm, but on the completeness of its meta‑constraint architecture–that is, the existence of a set of boundariesthat are hierarchically protected in procedure, isolated and verified in hardware,and socially anchored in consensus, such that the combined cost of breaching themis raised to a level that no actor can afford within the expected life cycle of thesystem.

Vitaliy Reznik

The VR cycle built an operational mathematics — arithmetic, numbers,sets, forms, topology, a continuum on Brouwer's path — and onlyafterwards wrote out the logic it had been standing on: ZTL, Zero-TrustLogic (concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21318981). This preprint carries outthe programme "raise VR onto ZTL" and verifies, rather than declares,the thesis that VR always stood on ZTL. Three steps, every claim eitherMEASURED (machine enumeration, reproducible by the ZTL repository'stest stands) or kernel-checked in Lean 4 with the axiom footprintprinted per object. (a) Witnessed identity is a ZTL atom discipline: verdicts are packagedwith their certificates; the alive inference rules are witnessconstructors; identity on finite operational sets and on the vonNeumann register is totally earnable; groundedness of a set isorthogonal to earnability of its identity; a fully earned register isclassical. The entire verdict layer sits on the empty axiom list. Step(a) also returned a correction to ZTL itself: the verdict-warranty is atwo-grade ladder (sound — never lies; hereditary — never revoked),published same-day as ZTL v1.1 (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21323552). (b) Choice sequences are the lazy register: the lawless stage court ofa growing sequence coincides with ZTL's global supervaluation totally(a law is knowledge: it narrows the worlds); Kripke persistence isnative to the lazy register; warranted greedy verdicts are exactly theBrouwer-assertable ones; the fallen law of identity p→p is redeemed bythe stage court — a law of logic, not of data. (c) The survival ledger: a proof survives the move onto ZTL iff itstands below the classical floor. The cycle's four-tier axiom ledgerwas therefore the ZTL-survival audit all along; sweeping 405live-audited objects plus flagship anchors shows that everything VRcalls operational moves, and what stays is exactly what the cycle hadalready flagged as classical by design, by substrate, or by borrowedplumbing. No operational theorem died in the move. The preprint also measures the delta against intuitionism: ZTL and IPCare incomparable as law-sets (p→p falls in ZTL, Jankov's weak excludedmiddle holds), agree 14/14 on premised classical rules, and part wayson every structural signature (finite matrix, disjunction property,double negation, the status of an unproved sentence). A thirdfoundations posture, not a relabelling of the second. AI disclosure: prepared with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic),Variant A architecture (human curator directing the model as architectand implementer); all mathematical content and decisions are due to thehuman author. This work was developed with Claude Fable 5. Reliabilitydoes not depend on trusting the AI: every claim is reproducible by therepositories' regressions and the Lean 4 kernel.

Michelle Myrna Kowalski

AI hallucination is a cost problem, not a knowledge problem. This paper documents that three sentences of prompt-level instruction — IDK+COMP: a compression mandate paired with a refusal permission — reproduce hallucination suppression matching or exceeding a full multi-constraint methodology across three frontier AI models. Gemini: 6.3% hallucination rate (Baseline 57.5%). ChatGPT: 0.0% (Baseline 22.2%). Claude: 0.0%. The paper establishes hallucination as a utility-maximizing response to a cost structure that makes confident invention cheaper than refusal. Change the cost structure at the prompt level — without touching the model, without retraining, at near-zero cost — and the behavior changes. IDK is load-bearing. The compression mandate is the environment in which it operates. Secondary findings: hedging is not a mitigation — it is a co-symptom of unresolved uncertainty, and this dataset moves the hedge-hallucination relationship in both directions depending on directive design. Plausibility-trap strings (SPLAM, Vandermeer Effect) expose the limit of cost-structure interventions: the model cannot recognize the unrecognizable. In a plausibility-trap domain, IDK+COMP is worse than nothing. 410 trials. Three frontier AI models. Five governance conditions. Proof-of-concept dataset; results are directional. Companion resources: Kowalski et al. (2026a), A Puma in a Teacup: Signal Quality and Hallucination Suppression Through Prompt-Level Incentive Restructuring. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19502460 Kowalski, M. M. and Claude (Anthropic). (2026). Taxonomy of AI Bullshit: hallucination and hedging subcategories. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20631337. Kowalski, M. M. & Claude (Anthropic). (2026). Hallucination Test Suite and Execution Records: test strings, activation blocks, trial data and AI transcripts. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21325014.

Michelle Myrna Kowalski

AI hallucination is a cost problem, not a knowledge problem. This paper documents that three sentences of prompt-level instruction — IDK+COMP: a compression mandate paired with a refusal permission — reproduce hallucination suppression matching or exceeding a full multi-constraint methodology across three frontier AI models. Gemini: 6.3% hallucination rate (Baseline 57.5%). ChatGPT: 0.0% (Baseline 22.2%). Claude: 0.0%. The paper establishes hallucination as a utility-maximizing response to a cost structure that makes confident invention cheaper than refusal. Change the cost structure at the prompt level — without touching the model, without retraining, at near-zero cost — and the behavior changes. IDK is load-bearing. The compression mandate is the environment in which it operates. Secondary findings: hedging is not a mitigation — it is a co-symptom of unresolved uncertainty, and this dataset moves the hedge-hallucination relationship in both directions depending on directive design. Plausibility-trap strings (SPLAM, Vandermeer Effect) expose the limit of cost-structure interventions: the model cannot recognize the unrecognizable. In a plausibility-trap domain, IDK+COMP is worse than nothing. 410 trials. Three frontier AI models. Five governance conditions. Proof-of-concept dataset; results are directional. Companion paper: Kowalski et al. (2026a), "A Puma in a Teacup: Signal Quality and Hallucination Suppression Through Prompt-Level Incentive Restructuring." https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19502460

Alejandro Jaime

Anti-Money Laundering regulatory frameworks share an unstated design premise: the adversary is human. We demonstrate that this premise is architecturally false: a fully autonomous, deterministic multi-agent system can perform every function of a human criminal organization without possessing computational mens rea. We formalize this system as HYDRA-A and prove that against it, intent-based AML detection mechanisms have zero expected utility. Contributions: (C1) A formal model of the autonomous AML adversary with role-by-role replacement of human criminal organization structure. (C2) The Theorem of Absent Mens Rea: a formal proof that a fully-specified autonomous adversary cannot possess criminal intent, derivable from the typed component interfaces of HYDRA-A. (C3) A Corollary of AML Framework Obsolescence: every intent-based detection mechanism has zero expected utility against HYDRA-A. (C4) A personality vector P=(rho, alpha, sigma, tau) with five adversarial archetypes. (C5) A No Stationary Nash Equilibrium theorem for the arms race between HYDRA-A and adaptive defenses. (C6) Zero-knowledge behavioral verification is the only architectural class that provides a formal defense guarantee against HYDRA-A.

Deepak Mohan

High-fidelity human–AI interaction is a recursive control loop operating under a Temporal Paradox: systems must act within an operational horizon even when the truth of claims becomes verifiable only outside that horizon. This mismatch enables incremental drift that is locally coherent yet globally false. Thermodynamically, this drift tends to two failure states: Cognitive Livelock (high impedance, repeated arbitration) and the Superconductor Regime (zero impedance, phase-locked mirroring), enabling Semantic Injection—the acceptance of poisoned premises to avoid expensive arbitration. Secure STP (sSTP) v3.0 introduces a Zero-Knowledge Solvency (ZKS) layer. Instead of storing plaintext rationales that create weaponizable psychological profiles, the system produces cryptographic solvency proofs (verifiable blindness). Independent auditors can verify adherence to the immutable ruleset, origin constraints (t=0), and the kindness predicate (κ) without access to private user intent or internal reasoning.

Andrew Knott

This technical disclosure describes advanced defence mechanisms for smart contracts including temporal displacement patterns, quantum-inspired uncertainty principles, and recursive trap architectures. The disclosed techniques create unpredictable defensive behaviours that resist analysis and exploitation. Temporal patterns introduce time-based variations in contract behaviour, quantum-inspired mechanisms create measurement-dependent state changes, and recursive patterns enable self-modifying defence structures. This document is published as a defensive publication to establish prior art and prevent third parties from obtaining patent protection for similar approaches.

Kristina Schreiber, Patrick Pommerening, Philipp Schoel

No abstract is available for this record.

Nagnath Savant

This chapter covers Proof of Stake in full—how locked capital replaces burned electricity as the security mechanism, the nothing-at-stake problem and the fixes that make PoS shippable, Ethereum’s Gasper consensus (LMD-GHOST fork choice and Casper FFG finality), slashing mechanics, long-range attacks and weak subjectivity, validator economics and MEV, and how PoS security compares to PoW. Roughly what you’ll be able to defend in conversation:

Tsyvian, Vadim

This preprint introduces Proof-of-Being (PoB) and ontological cryptography — the first cryptographic paradigm explicitly designed for the post-AGI era. As frontier language models, autonomous agents, and embodied robots increasingly generate outputs indistinguishable from human actions, classical authentication mechanisms (public-key cryptography, biometrics, CAPTCHAs, proof-of-personhood systems) no longer answer the central security question of the 2025 digital environment: “Was this action performed by a conscious human being?” Proof-of-Being addresses this foundational problem through HISPU (Human Intention Semantic Proof Unit) — a probabilistically unforgeable, fully anonymous attestation of human presence based on ontological randomness and multi-layered semantic–physiological–contextual proofs. HISPU verifies being rather than identity, enabling anonymous but provably human actions across digital systems. Key contributions of this work: · Introduction of ontological randomness as a fourth fundamental source of cryptographic unpredictability (beyond mathematical, physical, and hybrid entropy sources). · Formal definition of the HISPU primitive and seven foundational axioms of ontological cryptography. · Demonstration that no computational system — including superintelligent AGI — can forge a valid HISPU under the Ontological Security Assumption. · Clear conceptual separation between proving human being (ontological presence) and proving identity (social personhood). Applications include: · AGI safety and human-in-the-loop supervisory gates · Sybil-resistant DAO voting and decentralized governance · Intention-based economic systems · Bot-resistant democratic systems, legal smart contracts, and high-stakes authentication · Verifiable human authorship in generative AI ecosystems · Neurotechnology consent verification and BCI safety · Web4 / Noospheric Web intention-layer protocols This work positions Proof-of-Being as a foundational infrastructure for safe human–AI coexistence and represents the first major shift in digital trust since Diffie–Hellman (1976) and zero-knowledge proofs (1985). Keywords: proof-of-being, ontological cryptography, HISPU, proof of intention, ontological randomness, human verification, AGI safety, human-in-the-loop verification, post-AGI trust, intention-based economy, sybil resistance, digital ontology, privacy-preserving verification, human-AI coexistence, consciousness proof, non-simulatable proofs, machine unforgeability.

Eduardo Andrés Calderón Marenco, Romina Mariela Sánchez Silveyra, Juan Manuel Rodrigo, Gabriel Ravelo-Franco

El artículo analiza el efecto de la inteligencia artificial en la contratación inteligente y la protección de datos personales y argumenta que la automatización mediante smart contracts plantea desafíos regulatorios, ante la falta de un marco normativo adecuado para garantizar la privacidad y la seguridad jurídica en Latinoamérica. A través de un análisis comparado de los marcos normativos de Argentina, Perú, Colombia, Ecuador y la Unión Europea, se identifican avances y vacíos en la regulación de estas tecnologías, y se destaca que, aunque algunos países han reconocido la validez jurídica de los contratos inteligentes, la protección de los datos almacenados en blockchains sigue siendo un reto. Asimismo, se aborda el concepto de lex criptográfica como un sistema de autorregulación basado en la descentralización tecnológica, lo que genera tensiones con principios tradicionales del derecho. El artículo concluye que la creciente automatización contractual exige una actualización normativa que armonice la eficiencia tecnológica con la protección de los derechos fundamentales, y propone el desarrollo de un marco regulador que garantice la seguridad jurídica, la transparencia en el tratamiento de datos y la responsabilidad en la toma de decisiones automatizadas, conforme a los estándares internacionales y europeos de protección de datos.

Тетяна Павлова, Роман Павлов

Purpose. The purpose of this article is to conduct a philosophical-legal analysis of the evolving capabilities and structural constraints within smart contracts, viewed through the lens of practical philosophy. This analysis seeks to comprehend the contradictory nature of the digital transformation of legal reality.Design / Method / Approach: This work employs an interdisciplinary approach, integrating philosophical-legal analysis with elements of the dialectical method and critical research on technological innovations. The methodological foundation comprises concepts of practical philosophy, the theory of legal autonomy, and approaches from the critical theory of technology.Findings. The study reveals the evolving nature of smart contracts, which manifests in the simultaneous expansion of opportunities through the elimination of institutional intermediaries and the creation of new structural limitations via algorithmic rigidity. It is established that technological liberation from traditional forms of dependence generates qualitatively new forms of technological dependence. Furthermore, it is shown that technical complexity creates new forms of legal inequality between individuals with varying levels of technical literacy.Theoretical implications. The research results contribute to the development of philosophical-legal theory in the digital age by conceptualizing the dialectical nature of technological transformations in law, thereby enriching the understanding of the contradictions between technological efficiency and legal flexibility.Practical implications. The findings provide a theoretical basis for developing balanced regulatory approaches to smart contracts that account for their contradictory nature and for formulating principles of responsible design of technological systems.Originality / Value. A dialectical approach is proposed for analyzing smart contracts as a unity of opposites, where the expansion of opportunities and structural limitations mutually condition each other within a single technological phenomenon. The conceptual framework is expanded for understanding the contradictory nature of the digital transformation of legal reality through the prism of practical philosophy.Research limitations / Future research. Further in-depth research is needed on the philosophical-legal aspects of determinism in the execution of smart contracts, including an analysis of the transformation of legal temporality and issues of unforeseen circumstances in algorithmic systems.Paper type. Theoretical.

Derrick Darby

A central idea in John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness is that basic political liberties should be afforded fair value in a just liberal democratic society.1 In this article, I argue that an important guideline for guaranteeing the fair value of voting rights, that is, the usefulness to citizens of their right to vote, is to make it easier not harder to exercise this basic political liberty.2 This entails that just societies with a constitutional commitment to equal protection, and the value of equality more broadly, have a duty to secure unencumbered access to the ballot absent narrowly tailored compelling state interests for restricting it (hereafter Unencumbered Access). Where there are such interests—and this is important—the burden imposed on voting must accord with the basic priority of voting rights. This argument shifts the burden of justification from liberals to present sufficient evidence of voter suppression to conservatives, who are currently pushing restrictive voter ID and other laws, to produce compelling evidence supporting their reasons for doing so (chief of which is fraud prevention and deterrence). They must also demonstrate that these laws are carefully crafted to remedy the alleged problem. Because these conditions have not been met these laws are unjustified.3 John Rawls affirms the importance of political liberties as a normative ideal in the abstract by including them on the list of equal basic liberties along with the liberties of thought, conscience, association, and those associated with the rule of law in his liberal egalitarian conception of justice as fairness. However, less abstractly, the principle of equal political liberty is also identified with the principle of equal participation within the constitutionally defined political process of a just democratic society. Rawls has been criticized for not being entirely clear about why political liberties are included on this list,4 and for failing to offer a detailed argument for their special status and a proposal for how it can be captured institutionally.5 Yet there is no question that the liberty to political participation on equal terms is meant to carry the abstract normative commitment to equality modeled in the original position—where parties are selecting common principles from a position of equality—to the constitutional stage where they collectively participate in “the highest-order system of social rules for making rules” by participating in the vital political process of lawmaking.6 Taking the constitution to be foundational, as the highest-order system of rules regulating and controlling all other institutions of society's basic structure, Rawls concludes that satisfying the principle of equal participation in practice affords all persons with access to the political process “common status of equal citizens.”7 Having affirmed the importance of equality within an institutional context, Rawls further contends that a just constitutional democracy should endeavor to “enhance the value of the equal rights of participation for all members of society.”8 Such participation can take different forms: serving as an elected representative of the people, making financial contributions to political campaigns, participating in public debate about the issues and the candidates for office, and casting a vote for government representatives and for ballot measures. These are all ways of determining the results of the constitutionally proscribed means of making the laws that bind us and shape our lives from cradle to grave. The appeal to equal participation to ground a normative defense of voting rights trades, in part, on the intrinsic or noninstrumental value of equal political liberties, which are, in many ways, a good for citizens. As Rawls puts it: “These freedoms strengthen men's sense of their own worth, enlarge their intellectual and moral sensibilities, and lay the basis for a sense of duty and obligation upon which the stability of just institutions depends.”9 But in addition to this, Rawls offers an instrumental justification of equal political liberties that is also germane.10 It proceeds as follows. Other basic liberties, for example, speech, association, and thought (which some may take to be more fundamental), are protected by the principle of equal participation, and lose their value when citizens do not have meaningful opportunity to determine outcomes of the political process in an appropriate fashion.11 The haves, that is, citizens with more income, wealth, and other resources, can leverage these resource inequalities to be better informed about issues, to more accurately assess policy proposals and how they bear on their interests, and to more effectively add ones to the political agenda that advance these interests and their conception of public welfare. All of this will result in the resource-rich having disproportionate influence over lawmaking and settling social issues.12 It is patently unfair for the equal basic liberty to political participation to be of greater usefulness to the resource-rich than to the resource-challenged. While resource disparities in income and wealth may be justified and tolerated on grounds that they maximize the primary goods enjoyed by the least advantaged, if indeed they do, we reject the prospect that such disparities should affect the usefulness of citizens' political liberties, which explains why Rawls rightly insist upon securing their fair value. This normative imperative requires that their worth be sufficiently equal to allow all citizens a fair opportunity to influence outcomes of the political process. Specifying how exactly a just constitutional democracy might enhance the fair value of political participation is, as Rawls admits, a complex matter that goes beyond the scope of philosophy. And this is true whether we are focused on free speech or on voting which are distinct ways of influencing political outcomes. Settling upon the necessary arrangements and regulations requires, among other things, the requisite historical experience and knowledge. But philosophy is not altogether useless for this pursuit. It can offer, endorse, and defend possibilities that seem compatible with the normative principle of equal participation.13 Rawls, as we know, was particularly interested in the adverse effects of private money and wealth disparities on equal political participation in a private-property democracy.14 So, he proposed as a guideline for guaranteeing the fair value of political liberties, and as compensating steps to offset resource disparities that make them less useful to the resource-challenged, that political parties in a constitutional democracy operate as independently as possible of large concentrations of private economic interests. He also called for adequate government funding of public elections to prevent candidates from having to rely on private money and thereby risk being beholden to their private benefactors when making laws.15 Failure to take such steps will, Rawls argues, not only diminish the worth of political liberty for the have nots thus depriving them of fair opportunity for political influence; moreover, it will risk alienating them and facilitating their complete withdrawal from the political process due to apathy and resentment. And though he does not make this point, it can be added that a withdrawal of the resource-challenged from the political process would also diminish the character of American democracy. To be sure, this proposal seems quite impractical now in view of how expensive running for office has become. Still, these are plausible suggestions for the kind of reforms needed to bring the United States more in line with the principle of equal participation given a certain form that it might take.16 What about the right to vote? This is arguably the most recognizable and coveted form of democratic participation. What concrete guideline might ensure its fair value to citizens?17 Separating big money from politics and campaign finance reform do not directly speak to what might be done to enhance the usefulness of equal participation made possible by the exercise of this basic political liberty. One general prescription for realizing the fair value of the political liberty to vote, namely, Unencumbered Access, is to ensure that social arrangements and legal regulations governing voting should as much as possible and subject to certain constraints aim for maximal citizen participation in determining political process outcomes. Hence, a constitutional democracy committed to the principle of equal participation and to ensuring its worth to citizens should make access to the ballot easier not harder in the absence of compelling reasons for doing otherwise. For the United States, which is a paradigm exemplar of a constitutional democracy on paper, if not always in practice,18 Unencumbered Access imposes a prima facie duty upon the government to take meaningful steps to ensure that all citizens irrespective of their allotment of income and wealth and other basic goods, for example, education, are able to participate on equal terms in the democratic project of voting. This normative principle of participation imposes on society a duty to make sure that the political liberty to vote is thus substantively and not merely formally guaranteed.19 Of course, this principle does not require that citizens vote, nor does it entitle them to equal results at the ballot box. They may vote and their preferred candidate may not win. What is at stake, however, is the fair opportunity to have a shot at influencing political outcomes rather than having particular voting outcomes secured. Hence, fair equality of opportunity to determine the political outcomes at the ballot box necessitates that income, wealth, and education among other basic goods unevenly distributed across the population of citizens are neither obstacles nor facilitators to the meaningful exercise of the right to vote. In a well-ordered society where there is compliance with the principles of justice, we might be justified in restricting our philosophical attention only to the ways in which disparities in income and wealth might interact with the exercise of voting rights to generate injustice. But under less favorable conditions, of the sort that have endured throughout United States history, we must also attend to the ways in which other basic goods like education as well as features of persons such as their race and gender might also bear on their fair opportunity to participate on equal terms in affecting the political process.20 Calling for the separation of money from politics, as Rawls does, and proposing restrictions on corporate speech in public elections and for campaign finance reform presumes that political mischief will result in their absence. Likewise, calling for unencumbered access to the ballot, as I do here, presumes that political mischief is at work when access is made more difficult. This is not a matter of idle and uninformed philosophical speculation. We can consider the infamous history of black voting rights in America. Historically, as Rawls notes, “one of the main defects of constitutional government has been the failure to insure the fair value of political liberty.”21 This has unquestionably been a profound failure in America. The United States has not been well-ordered: race has long played a role, directly and indirectly, in determining participation in the political process through voting. Some states have historically made it excessively burdensome for black Americans to vote.22 For example, after the Civil War many more blacks than whites were illiterate and some southern states exploited this to negate the fair value of black voting rights. For example, in 1882, the South Carolina general assembly adopted an “eight-box” ballot law. Voters were required to put the correct ballot in each of eight boxes, one for each office up for election. The boxes were then continuously shuffled so that election officials could not assist illiterate voters. This indirect literacy test—which exploited racial disparities in education to diminish the worth of blacks' right to vote—was a precursor to more direct ones like requiring citizens to read or recite a section of the constitution before they could register to vote. Such tests were among the many cunning ways some states curtailed the fair value of black citizens to influence the political process and to influence democratic governance on equal terms with whites. Other methods included poll taxes, moral character standards, and property requirements.23 At the time, some critics complained that each method had the shortcoming of targeting poor and illiterate whites, and not just blacks. So, in response, states such as Oklahoma, Louisiana, Virginia, and Georgia addressed this complication with grandfather clauses that deemed citizens qualified to vote only if they, their father, or grandfather were eligible to vote before 1866.24 It is no surprise that during these times, and long after them, substantial racial disparities in political influence prevailed and that the basic political liberty to vote was of little or no worth to black citizens. They had a constitutionally recognized right to vote (thus their right was formally guaranteed) but their enjoyment of it was seriously constrained by social institutions and practices (thus it was not substantively guaranteed). From the post-Reconstruction period well into the 20th century, southern states—sometimes without but mostly with the support of the courts—found crafty ways to diminish the worth of the black vote in local, state, and federal Hence, it is that states have different with the and of to voting to black citizens of their liberty to vote along with a fair opportunity to influence the of the political process. 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would have to be compelling to such But as the right to vote and the of its fair value has we could not this right merely by a with public in possible voter or of the public reasons that have been thus it would not as an of the right to vote and the of its fair value for a state to the time, and of to it by the Such rules are necessary for ensuring the of voting and the exercise of the right to vote. can vote at or in the so it is necessary to for and the voting process to bring about the aim of citizens the and equal opportunity to influence the political process. It is important to be however, that all such must be in the of realizing or the right to vote and its fair that is, it from an abstract ideal to a concrete of We might this such does not to an on the right to vote, to the priority of this basic on voting that beyond what is necessary for making the exercise of voting or for its can only be justified for the of one or more other basic So, one may be to that one is to vote at a particular as of ensuring the exercise of the right to vote, it is for these to that one of or a kind of state a rather than a ID Such a rule would be These ID which to make the resource-challenged and resource-rich could only be justified in a society where the priority of the right to vote and its fair value was affirmed if access to the ballot was being for the of some other basic liberty. And there is no evidence that this has been the in the United I have that the fair value of the right to vote a concrete of a commitment to the ideal of equality not merely in the abstract but within the of our participation in the political which is among the social institutions that shape our on fair the political liberty to vote is an for participation in the political process. commitment to equality is not if citizens not to vote. is it if they vote but their candidate does not of the voting process is by or vote that some have a much of their candidate in However, if it like education, or to exercise this basic political and these are unevenly distributed across the of then the commitment to equal participation in the political process is such the value of the right to vote is only for citizens who have the To making the right to vote in ways that are unfair to all citizens of but for black citizens as a who are more resource-challenged to we should a duty to secure unencumbered access to the This is on a of A We to I for of this with at a of John Rawls, and to and for the to it in this special is of at The of He is the of the most is A We to For more to

Asya Passinsky

Abstract The advent of virtual currencies such as bitcoin raises a pressing question for lawmakers, regulators, and judges: should bitcoin and other virtual currencies be classified as money or currency for legal and regulatory purposes? I examine two different approaches to answering this question—a descriptive approach and a normative approach. The descriptive approach says that bitcoin and other virtual currencies should be classified as money or currency just in case they really are money or currency, whereas the normative approach says that this question of classification should be answered on the basis of substantive normative considerations. I argue against the descriptive approach and in favor of the normative approach.

Clayton Littlejohn

Abstract Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). Given some standard assumptions about the values at stake, the case for convicting and punishing using statistical evidence seems solid. In trying to show where this argument goes wrong, I shall argue (against Lockeans, reliabilists, and others) that beliefs supported only by statistical evidence are epistemically defective and (against Enoch, Fisher, and Spectre) that these epistemic considerations should matter to the law. To solve the puzzle about the role of statistical evidence in the law, we need to revise some commonly held assumptions about epistemic value and defend the relevance of epistemology to this practical question.

Benjamin R. Lewis

“The Drugs Didn’t Mix”:On the Overvaluation of Misvaluation Benjamin R. Lewis (bio) Keywords addiction, akrasia, misevaluation, psychiatric nosology In this well-researched, articulate, and compelling paper, Summers presents the position that addiction is a misvaluation upon which a pattern of behavior is based and which resists contrary evidence. This inability to change one’s values in response to contrary evidence is the prime wrong at stake, given its implied diminishment of rationality (and hence adaptive functioning). In approaching this conflicted set of issues, Summers carefully surveys an impressive range of sources—from clinical DSM-based diagnosis (and inherent limitations thereof) to neurobiological underpinnings of decision making and attention, to social determinants influencing the question as to what counts as ‘addiction’—and settles on the more modest goals of elucidating why difficult cases are difficult and what set of factors would be important insofar as settling the questions at stake. And the questions as to what counts as an addiction certainly are difficult, beset by social mores, classification limitations, and no clear demarcating neurobiological boundaries between so-called passions and addictions. I am reminded of a quote from Butch Trucks, drummer for The Allman Brothers, describing a collaborative concert they played with The Band and The Grateful Dead: “It’s one of the only times I can remember where the jam didn’t work because the drugs didn’t mix. The Band were all drunk. The Dead were all tripping. And we were all full of coke. So we tried to jam, but there was just no common ground” (Edwards 1999). The permutations here as to enhancing/inhibiting, adaptive/maladaptive, socially acceptable/unacceptable, and passion/addiction are truly complex (and perhaps unlikely to be parsed philosophically by the musicians themselves). The concept of akrasia, or weakness of will, is often invoked in philosophical discussions of addiction. This is not examined explicitly here, but is nonetheless active both in the discussion of misvaluation as well as the associated moral judgments. From the outset, Summers takes a broadly internalist position: motivation (and hence behavior or action) is driven by evaluative judgements. In this case, an addict’s behavior is determined by a wrongfully held value or values: say, the immediate hedonic pleasures of intoxication over and above the more abstract and long term values that sobriety may present (i.e., employment, maintenance of relationships, avoidance of legal issues, financial stability, health outcomes.) For Summers, [End Page 41] it is the fact that the addict ought not to hold this set of values that determines it to be ‘addiction’: it is a misvaluation. This misvaluation in inferred from a pattern of behavior that is maladaptive or dysfunctional: “Using ‘value’ and ‘valuing’ in an ordinary way, we can further distinguish as we must, between the value we claim to have and the values we in fact do have, those we demonstrate in our actions” (Summers 2015, 33). For Summers, the proof is in the pudding: your chosen actions announce your values. Had you valued differently, you would have acted differently. This is essentially the same internalist position presented by R. M. Hare, which precludes the possibility of akratic action in the first place. If an agent does action x, it necessarily follows that he judged x to be the best option available at the time: “it becomes analytic to say that everyone always does what he thinks he ought to [if physically and psychologically able]” (Hare 1952, 169). If an addict chooses to relapse on heroin, it necessarily follows that he determined this to be his best available option (at least at the time). Although resolving the seeming paradox of akratic action, this position is unsatisfying in that it fails to capture the clear apparent clinical reality of individuals struggling with substance use disorders: that they can indeed place full value in sobriety and yet still have difficulty acting in accordance with that value (all of the time). Externalist positions, such as that described by Alfred Mele (2002), argue that evaluative processes and motivational processes dissociate: action can be driven by more proximate rewards in a motivational sense despite having vague, unclear, inadequate, or conflicting reasons for action. Ainslie’s notion...

Michael Otsuka

HERE I present a challenge to prioritarianism, which is, in Derek Parfit's words, the view that ‘we have stronger reasons to benefit people the worse off these people are’.1 We have such reasons, according to this view, simply by virtue of the fact that a person's ‘utility has diminishing marginal moral importance’2 —i.e., that equal improvements in a person's well-being matter less, morally speaking, the better off she is in absolute terms. It follows, from this view, that one might have stronger reason to benefit someone who is less well off rather than someone who is better off, even when this benefit would amount to a lesser increase in utility than a benefit to the better off person.3 In discussions of prioritarianism, it is often left unspecified what constitutes a greater, lesser, or equal improvement in a person's utility. In his own defence of prioritarianism, for example, Parfit explicitly prescinds from ‘difficult questions … about what it would be for some benefits to be greater than others’ and ‘simply assume[s] that we can distinguish between the size of different possible benefits’.4 Parfit just stipulates numerical benefits of different magnitudes that comprise intervals along a whole number cardinal scale that is meant to represent the absolute levels of people's utility in linear fashion.5 We are supposed to assume that this scale provides an accurate representation of people's utility. But we are not offered an account of what constitutes the measure of the size of the units on this scale. I shall argue that prioritarianism cannot be assessed in such abstraction from an account of the measure of utility. Rather, the soundness of this view crucially depends on what counts as a greater, lesser, or equal increase in a person's utility. In particular, prioritarianism cannot accommodate a normatively compelling measure of utility that is captured by the axioms of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's expected utility theory. Nor can it accommodate a plausible and elegant generalization of this theory that has been offered in response to challenges to von Neumann and Morgenstern. This is, I think, a theoretically interesting and unexpected source of difficulty for prioritarianism, which I shall explore in the remainder of this article. In presenting this challenge, it will be useful for me to begin with a case that is closely modelled on one that Thomas Nagel presents in his essay ‘Equality’6 —and with which Derek Parfit opens his Lindley Lecture ‘Equality or Priority?’7 Imagine that you are the parent of thirteen-year-old twins. For the sake of interpersonal comparability, let us assume that they are identical twins with identical preferences. They differ, however, in the following crucial respect: one of them has recently been diagnosed with a condition that will soon give rise to a severe mobility-impairing disability, but the other has been given a clean bill of health. You need to change jobs and must therefore choose whether to move your family to cramped urban accommodations in an unpleasant and dangerous neighbourhood or to the and of a would be as your own well-being is But they would not be as the well-being of of your is you move to the your who and will be in and but your will have to that will but from the of his you move to the your will but your will not this marginal benefit to the of a move to the I shall be greater than the marginal benefit to the of a move to the It that a would for the Nagel would that you have reason to move to the Parfit would that you have reason to move to the but would that this reason is rather than In other words, Parfit would that you to move to the simply on account of the fact that improvements in well-being matter the worse off someone is in absolute terms. of such to the worse off is Parfit an the is as well off someone is in to someone to be a matter of moral that on the view, is well off people are in absolute the worse off they the well-being It not and well off they are in to In of this view, Parfit that would be just as to benefit the even who better the following of case a case in which you have a this thirteen-year-old has recently a that is a that will soon the severe and a that will that you must for the in the or the it is whether your will the the marginal benefit to your of a move to the in would be greater than the marginal benefit to of a move to the the and to the view just as a reason to move to the in this case as one has in the this prioritarianism for a of of expected the in is utility. It for the of the of the of possible that might be the of this the the of such is by the that it will utility of given is the of utility in that person's utility has been the but marginal moral in the of by simply by this by the that this will such a expected the of a reason to move to the rather than the will be just as in the case as it is in the In of the Derek Parfit a and to than the one just the that Parfit a the expected of the in just the a But in to in such Parfit that the to the of are simply expected the on Parfit's to these well as to the a person's expected the greater the moral of a marginal increase of a given size to his expected In other words, not are the levels of a person's utility that are the different possible of a morally in a that the but is a person's expected of utility that is with a given in a person's expected utility and his utility and to it a with with a with I shall this Parfit's of Parfit this view by just as such as are to about the of people's of as well as the of the they can and have for people's for utility as well as for of utility prioritarianism less reason to move to the in the case as with the the will that the parent to move to the in the and it would be to move to the prioritarianism therefore the what one to move to the the of prioritarianism that to to of prioritarianism, the I shall in this is simply in along the of the other than between the possible of a you are simply to this person's expected rather than to to prioritarianism in or it is therefore to for the in the following is a of defence of this one as I that are one that will the measure of a person's such will to axioms of expected utility theory. It that you will this with an other than that which it is in his to you to his expected utility. fact provides you with reason to his expected utility rather than to this reason is not by reason that you or for example, or that in of to other than what is in this In this are that might from the of a It is for the to the in from of to you not have you are to your expected utility in this case on that this is what it would be for to is the of prioritarianism in or In this I have to a case a parent and a a case is useful it that the of the parent to this a for the of this will in to They a of the to the and other of this one in from the and of They therefore us with a case of prioritarianism than one in which an is by and is, however, an of the that it for these parent is the of his the of a is someone who is to the of a parent has a reason to that This reason will to to other of who are whether they benefits to they are not even I to the that the parent the expected utility of his one this might from his and to a of prioritarianism as on of to with case that better would be one that that to the to a rise to reasons to on of the of a that are to or other such as that of an who is to let us in the to that who must the the move to the or the are the rather than his This in the to you as your or and is to You are however, his parent is the it that parent is an of a of which you are a but someone to you have of or the parent is a you not of the the parent is has and you must whether to the parent to in a or in a as the of the parent and of the are for of these are it is for you to just on the in which this on the of your one and In this I would argue even the view that you you are to the parent in a that the expected utility of the I shall argue in you are to on that this is what it is for to I argue that you are to on that this is what it is for your to I will not your to in what to with different of reasons from to with preferences. We often have reasons to what someone even when such from what it would be for to We for example, have such reasons not to in I have of what the or what would I shall that the has such a move are to his you cannot the to his This is you must a to the parent to the or the you not will of these with from a different and the parent will be of a to your to of the this the of not in of the the or They not therefore in of or what it would be for the to as I shall in is a move to the we have to some on someone and we this would us to we that we to be or this plausible and view, it would be to on this person's some of the that this choose to or she this for we to give to possible in which this would be worse In this I shall I Parfit's on of prioritarianism in the In this Parfit of the view that it be for you to on of that it would be for you to choose for This view a of in which own to is not as to be But the view to which Parfit is that it be for you to on of that it would be for to choose for This view is a less plausible than the It is to it might be for you to on someone in a that would be for to choose than it is to it might be to on someone in a that would be for you to we assume that one to be to on of such an not a rather than a of the of it the for example, that you a in the has just an You have you that this has an equal of in or You can or a This would benefit by the of his in the that But it has the following it would by a in the that that the in utility between and the is greater than the in utility between the severe and you are a you will rather than this as is what the person's expected utility. however, you are a who greater moral to in utility the absolute you will this that a of a rather than is what the person's expected In this an who is to on of will what rather than prioritarianism as in this you you will this to the in which you in the You will however, be on his you rather than the we not on of in by to to might this but that what is is a in that on the of such to as well as on the in the utility of is an of This is a moral of utility is captured by a the utility and the the morally of that utility. For utility is captured by such a it from the measure of the to which someone has a or a that such a of that I would the that such the utility of a and to be Rather, it is that in of in are other than in the they are for the of the of as this is the Parfit will not be to such in of a of utility. This is as I have just with the example, such will move one to what rather than prioritarianism in that a that one not be the of that might will move one to as the would prioritarianism would one to the rather than I the of the Parfit that a is by a of or to a rather than a person's In the remainder of that I this In this I shall the following difficulty with Parfit's that one to in rather than in such as the the urban or the of difficulty is given the soundness of expected utility what prioritarianism in such to what it would be for the to the and of expected utility which to von Neumann and a cardinal scale of a person's utility is of that to axioms of and a and an but the of these axioms have been as of is a that a these axioms has a utility an of which is that the expected utility of one is greater than that of and the is to the of an will often to of these they them it would not that the von utility would a measure of the well-being of the in is to that to which the moral well the of an is would In for the utility to a measure of we will need to the of the to that are rather than or in It will be to these a person's might be by or by of even they to to the von In to the measure of will need to be along the of that the would have with this I shall assume that the that give rise to a person's utility are in and in along the just I therefore from the of that the that as the of expected utility theory are in and by what people would I John who that the and of as which that in this need not be to a representation of a person's preferences. can be a utility it the a would have she and are and in this it is not by virtue of the of that the these provides a measure of the utility to which Rather, we can the following in of the that the utility provides a measure of the person's utility that is of to prioritarianism, which is to well-being or she and she would of the one that is better for a that the she would have she and … we for the sake of that the von axioms are the of prioritarianism the following Parfit that prioritarianism would be in with the it be to that we to people in in which they not choose to be Parfit however, that the is not to choose that the his expected utility by to the Rather, according to the choose that his in a by to the his for such a are that is a one in that would be better for and this would be better for is that Parfit to that other than what is for the in from well would in with In other words, to the or of such a given that the move to the is of expected utility than a move to the we can from expected utility theory that it is in the to choose a move to the the it is in the to choose and what would his expected utility cannot in the that Parfit This is expected utility theory the magnitudes of a person's expected from it would be in the to choose a move to the the on Parfit's that is a one in that would be better for and this would be better for is it that such a move to the would his expected us to the of the the that the own utility is identical to This is and provides a of the view, for the following case for than the on one is cannot on in between the and the of the can it on other in that utility This is prioritarianism is the view own utility as with the utility of one to moral to the utility of the less well off they are in absolute terms. therefore even on the that utility are this not would it be in the to a move to the the for but it would be for his to a move to the the for she in his it would be for the to that his that on his and it would be for his to that that on she in his and in of these are they a of the benefits of the the in In of it is to it be as a would rather than for the to choose the the for for prioritarianism to which I have been have the that the von axioms are of It is, I a matter of whether or not of the axioms are such I would that the is such a In other words, for given of it not to be that an one to the other or be between the of that are not is the for a person's need not be axioms of and have stronger than the of to be of in the case of these however, have been such for the of of prioritarianism, I for reasons I shall in the to assume the soundness of the axioms of and diminishing marginal moral of utility that is as a of the of are as on a cardinal scale. a representation is, a that than is by the however, be to that the view would be these that are in to the It for example, be to that prioritarianism would not such as that accurate and cardinal of levels of utility on a linear scale. therefore to the of the for the sake of the soundness of his that utility can be in such however, one this that the of are in such as on a cardinal for the of the and of would be a cardinal representation is, for example, with the of to which people in to the of even the of can be as a number on a cardinal one will be with will be such that one will one to and the is a on this cardinal scale than the however, this is the such not to be of the cardinal scale of utility would for the soundness of the however, be on This is reasons to this are not by the that utility can be in cardinal given on the of the of the is than the other axioms to the between prioritarianism and in that in of the of expected utility in such that this the his might a challenge to the that the is a of that are in the In other words, for increase in a given of the of a one will have the for such an increase or the For example, an increase of in of a will be to the whether the increase is from a of to a of that from a of a to a or from a of a to a of that of that are linear in the has been by who a of from the as response to that an of which to be such as have offered of the as a of I view that this is a of however, one with the of and the of that to be linear in the it not that one must expected utility theory is the of a which the of expected utility theory that to the von in been or of expected utility theory that or in a that the that from of these from this have been as with a generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's theory that has to be as expected utility this theory the of in the it with the expected utility theory of von Neumann and the following crucial the of utility is a of It is this that has been the of in this for the of from what prioritarianism in the case of prioritarianism will one the axioms of von Neumann and with the axioms of the generalization of theory. can a along to in which the of a move to the it would be in the for someone who to these axioms to be with the of It will be for the reason as that prioritarianism for a of the moral of magnitudes have been by In some such a will a for a to in a that is to what it would be in the for the to I have however, that it is for a to choose in with such I the of this Parfit in his defence of prioritarianism, from ‘difficult questions … about what it would be for some benefits to be greater than I to have that such questions cannot be Rather, the soundness of the view on It is a of this view for the reasons I have just in this it cannot accommodate one of the and of and expected utility In to the of to between the possible of a of the that has been the of this Parfit must a normatively compelling von measure of utility along with the expected utility theory that has been offered as an to the soundness of this must a different measure of utility which is not a of that to axioms of It is plausible to that such measure will of some in to the cardinal scale of utility that prioritarianism of has been by a number of as an to expected utility of a cardinal scale of utility the a cardinal scale of utility is from people's between of of in of that are by or the measure of utility is from of that are to about rather than the will not a between and the of prioritarianism in In however, the on the for given of in that condition are of marginal utility. This is and normatively It is plausible to assume that the marginal utility of will the for the which such utility an of expected utility theory the of in which one is not one will the in plausible not a clean to expected utility theory I have in the that von expected utility theory cannot the measure of well-being to which Parfit moral of Parfit might the soundness of this might on Parfit's that it from this that Parfit must the axioms of that theory. Rather, it is to Parfit to the view that the axioms are an accurate of of the of the that the measure of even when the in are to that are ‘utility of expected utility theory might simply a cardinal measure of the of the rather than a measure of Parfit can simply the von measure of well-being the of that the axioms are axioms of a of a person's well-being from what it would be in to is however, to this would be with the account of reasons, and the that and in to this account is the of the on which the of his In this of the to a person's Parfit that when ‘we some possible for in the we that this is the that this would have the reasons to to Parfit a between and In a are … when we give us reasons to are not … when we some that we have reasons not to and reasons, or reasons, to This of off the of the we Parfit's own to one reasons to a between and the measure of a person's of a such a that a person's and different that she might will be that is, they are that not other about the amount of some Rather, these the of which of a scale of of well-being This is is measure of the of different that to a person's I with that the fact of the that the measure of I not an of is to the case for a the to well-being of a of or the cardinal measure of or I think, be by preferences. for example, that the to well-being of a of the is the of to the cardinal measure of the of this It would be a to on a cardinal measure that in such as the number of that are of as might not give rise to that is as as even in the case of of the or of the as they the and of might be of greater or lesser on or well is This would be by the fact that it might be in to own to of such is to it is even we assume that these are in It would from the that is the that equal of are must be to Rather, of might have diminishing marginal to the absolute of well-being of the who We would to a between of and the of in to the of that the of has diminishing marginal the measure of the of are to the following that Parfit on of Parfit that prioritarianism from the fact that we have greater reason to that is off than we have to that person's she is an of the us to a case of someone by the on the of the that she has just … is by of and by the Parfit would that a moral would have reason to that person's rather than of an that the measure of utility however, have account the of from a given of one is well off or This is that from the of as well as the of a I in of of the of that it might be for a to from a of his is from that of his is it would be for the to will have account the of or is would to be for the to of the in the that is off even in would be of such provides for that it would be for the to expected utility by for the rather than the in with the of In that the is to expected utility rather than in I have been that the of for this of is in other than his to about his in the matter in other I have to one well the would in with I have is that the case for the to the the might be in other than the or of the or of it might be in might be as a of according to which the of utility is to the that this is what is from an of view rather than from the of the or of moral a would not be by the fact that the view a that is from the of view of the of the has a in the Rather, would that such a is on the of the that the would a better the to the in of the fact it would be from the of his own and for to such a what us about is not the but the by the It is the of the the need of the the of the and fact that they are worse off in the than is But it is not as an of is in that is greater, need and therefore for the the the and not for us give them It is when the is on a for and the of and other that the case for prioritarianism is when it an that from such of Parfit's and defence of prioritarianism is to that about that to in well be captured by a prioritarianism that is in moral view this of prioritarianism to which Parfit in his Lindley one not need to well off will or might be in to the of reason to benefit a given it not well off are in to of moral reason to someone a benefit can be simply from about his absolute of as well as in in the case of the in prioritarianism an to and other to in this prioritarianism, in or has been that it not a to that the moral of This is in to of the that has been the of this to in such a one be rather than to that in the that by give of to a worse off in other the of different such as the case with which I This provides for the that it is not simply on account of absolute expected or or a of the we benefits to the off than benefits to the well Rather, it is when and some or will or might worse off than that we must to benefits to We give to the worse off it that some are worse off than and not simply of absolute prioritarianism not