Jason Brennan

This paper describes the “Ethics Project”, a semester-long entrepreneurial activity in which students must make real-life decisions and then reflect upon their decisions. The Ethics Project asks students to think of something good to do, something that adds value to the world, and then do it. Along the way, they must navigate problems of opportunity cost or feasibility versus desirability, must anticipate and overcome strategic and ethical obstacles, and must ensure they add value, taking into account their costs. Rather than role-playing through case studies, students live through real-life case studies which result from their own choices. When properly administered, the Ethics Project trains student to be principled leaders who integrate ethical principles into strategic decision-making, and who can discover and overcome their own moral limitations.

G. A. Cohen and David Estlund have recently defended utopophilia against utopophobia. They argue we should not dumb down the requirements of ethics or justice to accommodate people’s motivational failings. The fact that certain people predictably will not do the right thing does not imply they are unable to do so, or that they are not obligated to do so. Utopophiles often defend left-wing ideas; for instance, Cohen argues that people’s unwillingness to do what socialism requires does not imply that socialism is bad, but instead that people are bad. This essay shows that utopophiles must also endorse certain “conservative” conclusions, such as that most poor adults in the developed West are obligated to act more prudently, get jobs, become net taxpayers, avoid having children they cannot afford, and act to avoid needing welfare or assistance.

Why you have the right to resist unjust government The economist Albert O. Hirschman famously argued that citizens of democracies have only three possible responses to injustice or wrongdoing by their governments: we may leave, complain, or comply. But in When All Else Fails, Jason Brennan argues that there is a fourth option. When governments violate our rights, we may resist. We may even have a moral duty to do so. For centuries, almost everyone has believed that we must allow the government and its representatives to act without interference, no matter how they behave. We may complain, protest, sue, or vote officials out, but we can’t fight back. But Brennan makes the case that we have no duty to allow the state or its agents to commit injustice. We have every right to react with acts of “uncivil disobedience.” We may resist arrest for violation of unjust laws. We may disobey orders, sabotage government property, or reveal classified information. We may deceive ignorant, irrational, or malicious voters. We may even use force in self-defense or to defend others. The result is a provocative challenge to long-held beliefs about how citizens may respond when government officials behave unjustly or abuse their power.

Business Ethics for Better Behavior concisely answers the three most pressing ethical questions business professionals face: 1. What makes business practices right or wrong? 2. Why do normal, decent businesspeople of good will sometimes do the wrong thing? 3. How can we use the answer to these questions to get ourselves, our coworkers, our bosses, and our employees to behave better? Bad behavior in business rarely results from bad will. Most people mean well much of the time. But most of us are vulnerable. We all fall into moral traps, usually without even noticing. Business Ethics for Better Behavior teaches business professionals, students, and other readers how to become aware of those traps, how to avoid them, and how to dig their way out if they fall in. It integrates the best work in psychology, economics, management theory, and normative philosophy into a simple action plan for ensuring the best ethical performance at all levels of business practice. This is a book anyone in business, from an entry-level employee to CEO, can use.

"American criminal justice is a dysfunctional mess. The so-called Land of the Free imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Understanding why means focusing on color -- not only on black or white, but also on green. The problem is that nearly everyone involved in criminal justice faces bad incentives. "Injustice for All" systematically diagnoses why and where American criminal justice goes wrong, and offers functional proposals for reform. By changing who pays for what, how people are appointed, how people are punished, and which things are criminalized, we can make the US a country which guarantees justice for all." --

Democracy is both an obvious and dubious idea. Here's why democracy is an obvious idea: For most of history, most governments divided people into the few who rule and the many who obey. The few then used the state to advance their own private interests at the expense of the many. Rulers were less like noble protectors appointed by God and more like intestinal parasites. The obvious solution is to eliminate the distinction between those who rule and those who obey. Make every citizen both a ruler and a subject of that rule. This ensures government promotes everyone's interests. Thus, democracy is the best form of government. It's too bad it took most of civilized history to realize this-and too bad that the world isn't more democratic than it is. Here's why democracy is a dubious idea. Government decisions are high stakes. It decides matters of war and peace, prosperity and poverty, freedom or oppression. Yet we let incompetent people steer the ship of state. Most voters are ignorant and process what little information they have in biased and irrational ways. They fall prey to propaganda and demagogues. They are conformists and don't even try to vote their interests. Democracy is the political equivalent of drunk driving. Thus, democracy is a defective form of government. Democracy is a method by which the masses shoot themselves in their feet. Philosophy students often start essays by writing, "Since the dawn of time, humanity has pondered..." In this case, these arguments and concerns are old, if not dawn-of-time old. We find laypeople, pundits, social scientists, and philosophers making these two arguments today. But in ancient Athens, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle said similar things.

Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away. In Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively "giving back" to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best chance of leading a life that's authentically our own. Brennan also demonstrates how money-based societies create nicer, more trustworthy, and more cooperative citizens. And in another chapter that takes on the new historians of capitalism, Brennan argues that wealthy nations became wealthy because of their healthy institutions, not from their horrific histories of slavery or colonialism. While writing that the more money one has, the more one should help others, Brennan also notes that we weren't born into a perpetual debt to society. It's OK to get rich and it's OK to enjoy being rich, too. Key Features Shows how the desire to become wealthy in an open and fair market helps maximize cooperation and lessens the chance of violence and war Argues that it is much easier for the average for-profit business to add value to the world than it is for the average non-profit Demonstrates that the kinds of virtues that lead to desirable personal and civic states also make people richer Argues that living in small clans for most of their history has given humans a negative attitude towards anyone acquiring more than her "fair share," an attitude that's ill-suited for our market-driven, globally connected world In a final, provocative chapter, maintains that ideal economic growth is infinite.