Recent ucla items

A New Frontier in Heart Failure Promise and Pitfalls of Primary Prevention

Sat, 7 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A New Frontier in Heart Failure Promise and Pitfalls of Primary Prevention

Health Justice Strategies to Combat the Pandemic: Eliminating Discrimination, Poverty, and Health Disparities During and After COVID-19

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Past infectious disease epidemics in the United States and governmental responses to them made it highly predictable that people living in poverty, people of color, and people with disabilities would bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic due to discrimination that limits equal access to resources, such as health care, housing, and employment. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified and accelerated the impact of longstanding discrimination and health inequity among historically marginalized groups and low-income populations. Black and Latinx populations have a higher COVID-19 contraction and mortality rate, higher rates of unemployment, less access to health care, and are at higher risk of eviction during the pandemic, among other significant inequities. Without robust and swift government interventions, the impacts of the pandemic will be wide and deep. This article analyzes mechanisms of discrimination and barriers to health in the pandemic setting using the health justice framework...

Democratizing the Law of Social Distancing

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Public health emergency statutes should give executive-branch officials clear authority to respond swiftly in a crisis while setting forth principles to guide executive discretion. Statutes already provide specific authorizations and statutory guardrails for individually targeted measures like isolation and quarantine. New legislation is needed to provide similarly specific authorizations and guardrails for compulsory social distancing and face mask orders. Reforms should facilitate democratic accountability for executive-branch decisions in addition to protecting individual rights. This article offers five key principles to guide legislation. First, statutes should mandate transparency, which is critical to secure the public’s trust. To ensure compulsory orders are conditioned on a demonstrated threat of significant risk and a suitable fit between the means and clearly stated ends, mandated disclosures should include statements of the strategic purpose orders are intended to...

Federal Eminent Domain and Interstate Energy Infrastructure: Evidence from History

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We analyze a historical episode to generate evidence on how federal eminent domain authority affected construction of energy transportation infrastructure. The 1947 amendment to the Natural Gas Act gave federally approved interstate natural gas pipelines the power to acquire rights of way by eminent domain when negotiations with landowners failed. We compare construction of interstate gas pipelines with construction of oil pipelines and of within-state gas pipelines, neither of which was directly affected by the reform, using newly digitized historical government records and trade press listings. After 1947, annual additions to interstate gas pipeline mileage rose nearly sixfold while oil pipeline growth held steady, and the gain in interstate mileage was nearly five times the gain for within-state pipelines. Both comparisons suggest that the amendment substantially increased interstate gas pipeline construction. We discuss what...

The Personal Responsibility Pandemic: Centering Solidarity in Public Health and Employment Law

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The personal responsibility ethos that has driven the US response to the coronavirus pandemic has been ineffective, atomizing, and unjust. Restrictions on public services and private activities have disproportionately burdened people living in low-income households, people with disabilities, people of color, and women. At the same time, the severe illnesses and deaths that have continued to occur in spite of public health responses have been disproportionately concentrated among people of color, disabled people, and low-wage workers.This paper argues that fundamentally individualistic employment and antidiscrimination laws have undermined—rather than supported—disempowered workers’ ability to protect themselves and others. The law has failed to protect people who live and work in congregate institutions (including nursing homes, prisons, jails, detention facilities, factories, and warehouses . . . and, perhaps soon, schools) and thus has failed to protect the broader communities...

Compelled Speech and the Irrelevance of Controversy

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

NIFLA v. Becerra stealthily introduced a new First Amendment test for compelled speech that has injected chaos into the law of compelled disclosures. NIFLA reinterpreted the requirement that compelled disclosures contain only “purely factual and uncontroversial information” in a way that imbued independent force into the “uncontroversial” component of that test. Yet, the Court failed to supply criteria for what sort of purely factual information would fail to qualify as “uncontroversial information” and identified no important free speech concerns that this new prong protects.This Article distinguishes seven different interpretations of “uncontroversial information.” It then assesses them to ascertain whether a meaningful and independent First Amendment value would be protected under each interpretation, making an effort not to conflate the stakes of compelling speech by organizations with the stakes for individuals. Most address no credible, independent free speech concerns whatsoever....

Federalism in Pandemic Prevention and Response

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Federal-state conflicts over business regulations, controls on personal movement, and financial support and coordination of supply chains have dominated headlines during the coronavirus pandemic. States hold the reins on most community mitigation measures (e.g., quarantine and isolation, physical distancing, and mask wearing), which may vary depending on local conditions. The federal government has authority to promulgate national guidelines and surveillance capabilities that states rely on when implementing, modifying, and easing community mitigation measures, but these guidelines have been inconsistent or absent. The federal government has provided limited financial support and coordination of supply chains to provide a foundation for state and local implementation of more targeted mitigation measures, which depend on widespread testing and disease surveillance. Federal-state conflicts have stymied efforts to ramp up and coordinate need-based distribution of resources for: 1)...

DESI Strong Lens Foundry. IV. Spectroscopic Confirmation of DESI Lens Candidates with VLT/MUSE

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We present integral field spectroscopic observations of 76 strong gravitational lens candidates identified with a residual neural network in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, obtained with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. These observations are part of an ongoing effort to build a large, spectroscopically confirmed sample of strong-lensing systems for studies on dark matter, galaxy structure, and cosmology. Our MUSE program targets both lens and source redshifts, with particular emphasis on Southern Hemisphere systems. MUSE’s wide spectral coverage and integral field capability allow for efficient identification of multiple sources, lens environments, and weak spectral features. Redshifts for lenses and sources were obtained via manual identification of spectral features in extracted 1D spectra. Our dataset includes systems with complex configurations, such as multiple source planes and group- or cluster-scale environments. We extracted...

Governmental Public Health Powers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stay-at-home Orders, Business Closures, and Travel Restrictions

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The president and all 50 governors have declared health emergencies to combat the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). While researchers race for vaccines, officials are implementing physical distancing, including orders to stay at home, restrict travel, and close non-essential businesses. To limit cross-border spread, a few states have issued mandatory quarantines for interstate travelers. Models suggest physical distancing would have to persist for 3 months to mitigate peak impacts on health systems and could continue on an intermittent basis for 12-18 months. What legal powers do governments have? What is the role of the courts? How can we balance public health with personal and economic rights?

Inducing Moral Deliberation: On the Occasional Virtues of Fog

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Legal standards are often valued for their flexibility and their susceptibility to nuanced, context-sensitive interpretation. Legal rules are usually celebrated for their clarity and certainty. The received wisdom is that the merits of the one form represent the demerits of the other. Standards, for instance, facilitate contextual, individualized application of the law and allow for greater adaptation to changing circumstances and an unfolding evolution of legal understanding, but these virtues are thought to come, unfortunately, at the expense of notice and transparency.

This Essay disputes the received wisdom by celebrating rather than lamenting the opaque features of standards. I argue that the stock story offers an incomplete perspective. By framing the prima facie unclarity and uncertainty of legal standards as a defect, the traditional picture ignores the salutary impact that superficial opacity may have on citizens’ moral deliberation...

Medicaid for All?: State-Level Single-Payer Health Care

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If single-payer health care is ever to become a reality in the United States, it will very likely be pioneered by a state government, much like Canada’s single-payer system was first adopted in the provinces. Canada’s system operates more like U.S. Medicaid — financed nationally but administered largely by the provinces — than U.S. Medicare. This article describes three basic strategies progressive U.S. state governments are exploring for achieving universal access to high-quality health care and better health outcomes for their residents. First, maximizing eligibility for the existing Medicaid program using matching federal funds. Second, taking up the mantle of Obamacare by adopting state-level replacements for provisions that federal lawmakers repeal, subsidizing and regulating the price of private insurance, and making more affordable coverage available for purchase on state-run health insurance exchanges. Third, I focus particularly on the efforts of states to succeed where...

Immoral, Conflicting, and Redundant Promises

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Immoral, conflicting, and redundant promises raise important but neglected issues for any theory of promising. The paper investigates what resources expectation theories of promising, such as Scanlon’s, have to deal with these under-explored problem cases. It contrasts them with the resources available to rights-transfer theories of promising, offering a welcome occasion for the refinement and clearer articulation of rights-transfer theories. The paper acknowledges that these cases appear to pose special challenges for rights-transfer theories, but ones, I contend, that it can meet. Although at first blush, Scanlon’s theory seems to handle these cases more straightforwardly than rights-transfer theories, Scanlon’s theory may oversimplify what is, in fact, rugged moral terrain.

Privatized Public Health Insurance and the Goals of Progressive Health Reform

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What does a single-payer system or a public option look like in a country where more than one-third of Medicare beneficiaries and more than two-thirds of Medicaid beneficiaries are enrolled in privatized public health coverage? The first state to implement a public option plan directed government officials to contract with private health insurers, rather than opening up access to traditional public benefits. For the fall 2020 open enrollment period, Washington’s health insurance exchange featured fifteen plans touted as public options, offered by five private carriers. Colorado’s governor proposed a similar plan, pursuant to 2019 legislation directing state officials to create a public option, but legislation to implement it was paused in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. These developments raise important questions: Is it necessary to eliminate private insurance companies to serve the goals of progressive health reform? What makes public health insurance programs public?...

Back-door Lies and Promising under Coercion

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article replies to critical essays by Rae Langton and David Owens about my book Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality and the Law. The article discusses the scope and morality of lying, deception, and promises extracted under duress.

Health Reform Reconstruction

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Article connects the failed, inequitable U.S. coronavirus pandemic response to conceptual and structural constraints that have held back U.S health reform for decades – and calls for reconstruction. For more than a half-century, a cramped “iron triangle” ethos has constrained health reform conceptually. Reforms aimed to balance individual interests in cost, quality, and access to health care, while marginalizing equity, solidarity, and public health. In the iron triangle era, reforms unquestioningly accommodated four legally and logistically entrenched fixtures—individualism, fiscal fragmentation, privatization, and federalism—that distort and diffuse any reach toward social justice. The profound racial disparities and public health failures of the U.S. pandemic response have agonizingly manifested the limitations of pre-2020 health reform and demand a reconstruction.Health reform reconstruction begins with a new conceptual framework that aims to realize health justice. Health...

Preserving the Valued or Preserving Valuing

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Samuel Scheffler's superb and original book provides important insights into individualism, human values, and how the meaning of our lives depends, surprisingly, on future generations. This comment pursues two further points. First, it asks whether our deep emotional investment in the future rests on the continuation of particular things, projects and activities or whether it rests predominantly on the continuation of the activity of valuing itself, even if future generations replace what we value with something else. Second, the comment argues that a reasonable asymmetry holds of our attitudes toward our prior collective non-existence on the one hand and our possible future non-existence on the other. This asymmetry parallels the Lucretian asymmetry between our attitudes about our individual past non-existence and our individual post-mortem non-existence.

Social Solidarity in Health Care, American-Style

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) reflected a significant philosophical shift in the United States from distributing costs associated with sickness based on the principle of actuarial fairness toward a social solidarity principle premised on the “goals of mutual aid and support.”[i] Yet four fixtures of American health care law complicate the translation of the solidarity ethic into real-world outcomes: (1) federalism, (2) fiscal pluralism, (3) reliance on private ordering and private markets for health coverage, and (4) an emphasis on individual rights and personal responsibility. The ACA’s approach to operationalizing solidarity insufficiently accounted for these fixtures. This ultimately limited its success and continues to threaten its durability, in ways laid bare by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. After tracing the philosophical evolution of health care law in the United States toward the ethic of social solidarity, this article identifies four legal fixtures of the American...

States as Shields

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

State laws that aim to shield providers of reproductive health and gender-affirming care from the punitive actions of out-of-state officials raise thorny questions. Can the federal courts, Congress, or the Trump Administration require New York officials to enforce a Texas ban on abortion or gender-affirming care against a New York doctor who prescribed medication to a patient in Texas via telehealth? If so, how might New Yorkers’ access to health care be affected? If not, will interstate commerce and travel preserve some degree of access for Texans?

Disputes over reproductive health and gender-affirming care are putting new pressure on doctrines that define the scope, limits, and purposes of the sovereignty of each state in relation to the federal government, to its sister states, and to the populace it is responsible for protecting. Judges called on to resolve these disputes will need to engage in careful line drawing with respect to doctrines that empower states to...

Could" Breach of Contract Be Immoral?

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Some scholars defend the contract law's ban on punitive damage awards on the grounds that breach of contract, in itself, is not morally wrong. In this Article, I offer two responses. First, I refute one prevalent argument of Steven Shavell's in support of this view. Shavell argues that contractual breach is not immoral in those cases in which the legal regime would offer expectation damages because the contracting parties would not have agreed to require performance had they explicitly deliberated about the circumstances occasioning the breach. I criticize his argument for failing to justify this hypothetical-contract approach and, in any case, for failing to apply the approach properly. Second, I provide some arguments for the general default interpretation that, unless explicitly delineated otherwise, a commitment to perform, morally, entails a commitment to perform rather than a commitment to perform or pay.

Rethinking Linking: Effects of Cap-and-Trade Integration on Equilibrium Emissions and Welfare

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Conventional economic reasoning suggests that linking cap-and-trade programs createsefficiency gains by lowering costs while holding emissions constant. When cap-and-trade programs have price floors or ceilings, however, linking may increase emissionsand decrease welfare. I investigate this phenomenon within California and Québec, where cap-and-trade linkage increased emissions by 17.5 million tons CO2e and reduced welfare by $331 million annually – an outcome that was ex-ante foreseeable. A reformed linked market could have remained emissions-neutral while instead increasing welfare by up to $32 million annually. I argue that political and institutional frictions prevented such reforms from being implemented and propose that policy makers prioritized cutting emissions cheaply over equating marginal damages and benefits. Given these constraints, linking with trading ratios remains incentive-compatible and recovers over three-fifths...

The Limits of the Right to Sell and the Rise of Federal Corporate Law

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Shareholders can influence the governance of a corporation by exercising their rights to vote, sue, and sell. Corporate law scholars have pointed to the right of sell as a reason to avoid mandatory corporate law rules. Shareholders can address governance abuses by exiting their investment. This essay considers some of the limitations to the right to sell. First, it may not be possible for a shareholder to sell in time to avoid substantial losses. Second, corporate governance irregularities may not be material enough induce investors to sell. Federal corporate law can address some of the limits to the effectiveness of the right to sell.

Bedrock

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I appreciate the opportunity to think further about lying and freedom of speech alongside Professor Leslie Kendrick, who legitimately presses me on a number of important issues. In particular, I’m grateful for the occasion to expand and clarify my position in response to three of her insightful and constructive criticisms: first, that I overestimate the fragility of our moral practices of trust, second, that I overvalue both sincere speech and free speech, and third, that given the high value I attribute to sincere speech, it is perplexing and perhaps revealing of a latent ambivalence about my methodology that I do not advocate for stronger, more comprehensive legal regulations on lying.

I start in Part I by describing the dilemma Kendrick poses for my argument against lying: namely either that it depends on empirically dubious premises and underestimates the resilience of our moral culture of trust in each other’s word, or that it normatively places inordinate value...

Speech, Death, and Double Effect

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this Article, Professor Seana Shiffrin identifies and explores a tension between the Supreme Court’s recognition of First Amendment protection for incendiary speech and the Court’s argument for rejecting the claim to a right to assisted suicide. Constitutionally, speakers may not be held liable for the illegal actions they inspire in audience members, unless the very high Brandenburg standard is met. By contrast, it is constitutional to prevent those who would seek assisted suicide from doing so, on the ground that a culture in which some elect suicide will encourage a higher incidence of involuntary deaths. Here, those who would voluntarily seek to exercise an important liberty interest are restricted in light of the projected illegal action of others. Shiffrin argues that this same tension is replicated in the contrast between the Court’s approach to incendiary speech and its approach to the regulation of secondary effects. Shiffrin contends that this tension holds special...

Coronavirus, Civil Liberties, and the Courts: The Case Against 'Suspending' Judicial Review

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not surprisingly, local and state government orders aimed at mitigating the spread of novel coronavirus have already provoked a series of objections grounded in civil liberties. Just as quickly, courts entertaining challenges to these orders have stumbled into the central (and long-running) normative debate over emergency powers: Should constitutional constraints on government action be suspended in times of emergency (because emergencies are “extraconstitutional”), or do constitutional doctrines forged in calmer times adequately accommodate exigent circumstances?In this essay, we argue that the mitigation strategies adopted in response to the coronavirus pandemic highlight three central problems with the “suspension” approach to judicial review of crisis powers. First, the suspension principle adopted by judges in some crisis powers cases is inextricably linked to the idea that the crisis is of finite — and limited — duration. In Smith v. Avino, for example, the underlying crisis...

Intellectual Property

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Intellectual property theory grapples with intriguing questions about the political and personal significance of our mental labour and creativity, the metaphysics of art and expression, the justifications for private property, and conflicts between property and free expression rights. This chapter begins with an introduction to the nature of intellectual property, comparing intellectual property to physical property. It continues with an overview of some arguments for, and criticisms of, the legal protection of intellectual property, and concludes with some ethical issues about illegal downloading.

Caution about character ideals and capital punishment: A reply to Sorell

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tom Sorell argues that the ideal of responsible agency requires an agent who has committed a crime to submit to the public's response. This article contests Sorell's claim that this ideal could provide any independent source of support for the death penalty. The article also raises worries about Sorell's claim that the ideally responsible agent would confess promptly and submit willingly to prosecution. In some cases, taking true responsibility for a crime may require more time and greater engagement with the public's response than prompt expressions of remorse would allow.

The Religious Liberty Challenge to American-Style Social Insurance

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Article argues that escalating religious challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) form a major new vector in the campaign against social insurance in the United States. Where early constitutional challenges urging a libertarian ethos of “you’re on your own” largely failed, religious claimants are succeeding with a traditionalist entitlement to “take care of your own as you see fit.” In a mounting series of lawsuits, objectors challenge requirements that employers and insurers provide comprehensive, nondiscriminatory coverage of sexual and reproductive health services. They demand freedom to define their own communities and choose which medical needs they will support. They revive the notion of personal responsibility largely repudiated by health reform and add a moralized twist. The result is discrimination against marginalized groups, coercion of workers, and loss of democratically determined rights.Bridging political economy and religion law scholarship, this Article...

Moral Overridingness and Moral Subjectivism

Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Increasingly, claims of morality's overridingness are met with resistance, especially from theorists who regard moral reasons as, in an important sense, subjective. This paper challenges this resistance by arguing that moral overridingness may be reconciled with this significant form of subjectivism about moral reasons. It does not argue for or even endorse this form of subjectivism. In fact, I suspect the view is false. Nevertheless, because of subjectivism's persistent pull, it is worth exploring the view's ramifications and, in particular, the degree to which -- through its challenge to overridingness -- it would be deflationary of morality's authority. Moreover, such an exploration will show that a critical source of overridingness may be found in features of morality that are intrinsic to its structure.

Flowers in the Spring

Thu, 5 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This music score was submitted for Resonate 2026: A Call for Scores by the UCLA Walter H. Rubsamen Music Library with David Kaplan, Decoda, and Contemporary Music Ensemble SORI. Resonate 2026 received support from a UCLA Gloabal Research Award.

Recent ucla items

A New Frontier in Heart Failure Promise and Pitfalls of Primary Prevention

Health Justice Strategies to Combat the Pandemic: Eliminating Discrimination, Poverty, and Health Disparities During and After COVID-19

Democratizing the Law of Social Distancing

Federal Eminent Domain and Interstate Energy Infrastructure: Evidence from History

The Personal Responsibility Pandemic: Centering Solidarity in Public Health and Employment Law

Compelled Speech and the Irrelevance of Controversy

Federalism in Pandemic Prevention and Response

DESI Strong Lens Foundry. IV. Spectroscopic Confirmation of DESI Lens Candidates with VLT/MUSE

Governmental Public Health Powers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stay-at-home Orders, Business Closures, and Travel Restrictions

Inducing Moral Deliberation: On the Occasional Virtues of Fog

Medicaid for All?: State-Level Single-Payer Health Care

Immoral, Conflicting, and Redundant Promises

Privatized Public Health Insurance and the Goals of Progressive Health Reform

Back-door Lies and Promising under Coercion

Health Reform Reconstruction

Preserving the Valued or Preserving Valuing

Social Solidarity in Health Care, American-Style

States as Shields

Could" Breach of Contract Be Immoral?

Rethinking Linking: Effects of Cap-and-Trade Integration on Equilibrium Emissions and Welfare

The Limits of the Right to Sell and the Rise of Federal Corporate Law

Bedrock

Speech, Death, and Double Effect

Coronavirus, Civil Liberties, and the Courts: The Case Against 'Suspending' Judicial Review

Intellectual Property

Caution about character ideals and capital punishment: A reply to Sorell

The Religious Liberty Challenge to American-Style Social Insurance

Moral Overridingness and Moral Subjectivism

Flowers in the Spring

Five Yarns for four parts, any sounders

A Moment Before Eternity

Infierno

Cloudspotting

Celebration

Honest Blooms

Subterranean Tunnels

introvert language

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano

Greebles

Prólogo and Celestine for Violin and Piano

Woven Thread

Nazca

WATCH

The Three B's

Terrible Dreams

Fables

Echoes of the Soul - for Violin and Piano

Waltzes from the Shore

Piece of the Beast

4 piano études

Für Musik

Short Piece for Horn and Piano No. 4

Journey Towards The Eternal Flame

Canoe

4 Vignettes

Horn Trio

La Vita Nuova for Clarinet and Pianoforte, no. 479b

Fantasia (homage to J.S. Bach)

Four Miniatures for Piano

Taught Artificially to Burn on the Side of the Angels, Op. 25

Prelúdios Elementares

Interlude

Seeing Through

You name this story

Flute Sonata

Black Terrarium

Trio na skrzypce, wiolonczelę, i fortepian "Czerwony Terror"

Memories (Hommage á Cristopher Larkin)

FugueChua

Nocturne in C Minor Op 1 No 1 "Voyage"

Small Talk with Andy

Rhapsody in C minor

Dominion in G Minor

Her Body Holding Back the Day's Arrival

Shadow Dance - trio

Piece for Boston

Atlantis

It unfolds, circles

Warp and Weft