prior probability

Here is another extended excerpt from my work-in-progress “Love and Liberty: A Short History of Adam Smith in Love.”

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Hurricane Eta, a dangerous Category 4 storm, is now heading for my beloved Island of Cuba; may she dislodge the corrupt and obsolete Cuban Communist Party from power forever!

Alternative title: Romance in L’Ancien Regime: Adultery, Kept Women, and “le demimonde”

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With apologies to Sheree and her excellent and entertaining “View from the Back” blog:

Ok, I will say a few words. This year’s Libertarian candidate (my preferred choice) has thus far received only 1.1% of the popular vote. By comparison, the 2016 Libertarian candidate (Gary Johnson) won 4.4% of the popular vote last time around. Next time (2024), us Libertarians should take a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook and run a celebrity candidate. Are there any famous Libertarians left in Hollywood?

As we await the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, allow me to make the following two updates about my current research project “Adam Smith in Love.”

Update #1: My friend and colleague Professor Brian Frye (Kentucky) recently featured my “Adam Smith in Love” paper on Episode #641(!) of his Ipse Dixit podcast. The Adam Smith in Love podcast is about 1/2 hour long and is available here.

Update #2: I have made significant revisions and additions to my “Adam Smith in Love” paper, which is available here, including a new subsection about “Romance in L’Ancien Regime: Adultery, Kept Women, and Le Demimonde” and a new conjecture about a possible love affair Smith had with one Madame Nicol. I will be blogging about these new additions to my paper soon.

Jo Jorgensen, that is! First and foremost, because she is Libertarian; secondly, because she is the smartest candidate in the field; thirdly, because my remaining choices are just so terrible; and fourthly, because I don’t like being told what to do, especially by faux-libertarians. Any questions?

Why did Adam Smith never marry? Below is a catalogue of my three most recent “Adam Smith in Love” blog posts:

1. Adam Smith’s Lost Diary
2. Doctor Smith in Love: Exhibit D
3. Adam Smith in Love: “Hypotheses upon Hypotheses”

See also Part 1 and Part 2.

My next “Advanced Topics in Law” class is devoted to illicit promises, such as the informal agreement between Don Corleone and the undertaker in the opening scene of The Godfather (Part 1) or the illegal partnership agreements so memorably depicted in the hit TV show Breaking Bad. Although the idea of an illegal or immoral agreement may sound esoteric, exotic even, illicit promises are everywhere. Consider, for example, the usurious payday loans in the case of Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc. v. Cardegna, or Shylock’s pound-of-flesh pact in Shakespeare’s immortal comedy The Merchant of Venice, or if you prefer vampire fiction, what about human-vampire agreements for the purchase and sale of blood?, or how about a modified version of the famous prisoner’s dilemma model in which the prisoners promise to obstruct justice? Simply put, many forms of wrongdoing often involve immoral promises and illegal agreements, especially given the expansion of federal regulatory crimes as well as our evolving and expanding conceptions of morality.

To the point: What is the legal and moral status of such illicit promises? Common law courts have developed a sophisticated body of legal principles and judicial doctrines in this area. In brief, courts have generally classified illicit agreements into two broad categories: those that are immoral or mala in se and those that are merely illegal or mala prohibita. Promises involving some form of moral turpitude are said to be mala in se and are void ab initio, while illicit agreements in violation of a commercial statute or an economic regulation are said to be merely mala prohibita and are often treated as “voidable” by the innocent party. Either way, illicit promises should be of theoretical interest to philosophers and legal theorists because such promises may help us delimit the outer boundaries of promissory obligations. These types of promises also exemplify the uncertain relation between ethics and law.