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Courts frequently engage in the weighing of competing values; perhaps most obviously, such balancing constitutes an integral aspect of proportionality analysis in many states' constitutional law. However, such balancing raises a difficult theoretical question: What does it mean that one value "outweighs" another in any particular case? If the values at issue are incommensurable — as they often will be — such balancing may appear to break down. As Justice Scalia has stated, balancing in the presence of incommensurable values "is more like judging whether a particular line is longer than a particular rock is heavy." It may appear that if a judge is asked in a particular case to decide, for example, whether a state interest is sufficiently strong to justify the limitation of a constitutional right, he will be forced to a) either abandon the notion of a genuine plurality of values, or b) make an arbitrary decision.This article argues that neither of these options need be accepted and that rational choice is indeed possible in the presence of incommensurable values. Specifically, it contends that the Nash bargaining solution provides a means, at least in certain circumstances, of rationally understanding and undertaking the weighing of distinct and mutually irreducible values which adjudication frequently requires. The Nash framework can both elucidate proportionality analysis by providing a social choice-based framework for understanding the structure of proportionality analysis and also justify proportionality analysis by demonstrating that the weighing of competing values is not necessarily mere judicial hand-waving.

The EU budget review process will restart as we approach the end of the current financial framework 2007-2013. This paper traces the history of the EU budget and draws lessons for the review to come. Whatever reforms are proposed, they must serve to shift spending to policy areas and instruments where the EU can best add value while at the same time recognising the political need for member states to present EU budget negotiation results in 'net-balance' terms. A two-stage negotiation is proposed: first member states should negotiate and agree on what constitute EU public goods, to be financed in proportion to GNI shares. Everything else would thereafter - by default - be deemed redistributive/compensatory spending to be financed, at least at the start, on the basis of member states' current overall net balances.

Distribute white and black hats in a dark room to a group of three rational players with each player having a fifty-fifty chance of receiving a hat of one colour or the other. Clearly, the chance that, as a result of this distribution, (A) "Not all hats are of the same colour" is 3/4. The light is switched on and all players can see the hats of the other persons, but not the colour of their own hats. Then no matter what combination of hats was assigned, at least one player will see two hats of the same colour. For her the chance that not all hats are of the same colour strictly depends on the colour of her own hat and hence equals 1/2. On Lewis's principal principle, a rational player will let her degrees of belief be determined by these chances. So before the light is switched on, all players will assign degree of belief of 3/4 to (A) and after the light is turned on, at least one player will assign degree of belief of 1/2 to (A). Suppose a bookie offers to sell a single bet on (A) with stakes $4 at a price of $3 before the light is turned on and subsequently offers to buy a single bet on (A) with stakes $4 at a price of $2 after the light is turned on. If, following Ramsey, the degree of belief equals the betting rate at which the player is willing to buy and to sell a bet on a given proposition, then any of the players would be willing to buy the first bet and at least one player would be willing to sell the second bet. Whether all hats are of the same colour or not, the bookie can make a Dutch book - she has a guaranteed profit of $1. However, it can be shown that a rational player whose degree of belief in (A) equals 1/2 would not volunteer to sell the second bet on (A), neither when her aim is to maximise her own payoffs, nor when she wants to maximise the payoffs of the group. The argument to this effect shares a common structure with models (i) for the tragedy of the commons and (ii) for strategic voting in juries.