Jason Brennan

Jacob Sparks critiques our recent work on commodification by arguing that purchasing love indicates one has defective preferences. We argue A) it is possible to purchase these things without having defective preferences, B) Sparks has not shown that acting such defective preferences is morally wrong, C) that Sparks’ misunderstands the Brennan–Jaworski Thesis, and so has not produced a counterexample to it, and finally D) that when we examine the processes by which love is gifted, it is unclear whether these processes should be preferred.

Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia made libertarianism a major theory in political philosophy. However, the book is often misread as making impractical, question‐begging arguments on the basis of a libertarian self‐ownership principle. This essay explains how academic philosophical libertarianism since Robert Nozick has returned to its humanistic, classical liberal roots. Contemporary libertarians largely work within the PPE (politics, philosophy, and economics) tradition and do what Michael Huemer calls “non‐ideal, non‐theory.” They more or less embrace rather than reject ideals of social justice, and they accept that positive liberty is important. The difference between them and Left‐liberals is not so much a dispute over fundamental values, but empirical disagreements about the extent of market versus government failure. In contemporary political philosophy, libertarianism remains a significant but influential minority position.1 Nevertheless, many philosophers have little sense of how libertarian and classical liberal thought has developed and changed after Robert Nozick's seminal Anarchy, State, and Utopia, published in 1974. This essay provides a short guide. The terms “libertarianism” and “classical liberalism” refer to a body of related views about politics, philosophy, and economics. As a body of related ideas, classical liberalism has the unity of a neighborhood more than a house. That said, libertarians and classical liberals generally tend to argue for following two sets of claims: As a matter of justice, each individual has an extensive set of negative civil and economic rights, which cannot easily be overridden in the name of utility, stability, or desirable cultural goals. Granting everyone a wide scope of personal and economic liberty tends to generate good consequences, while restrictions on liberty tend to produce bad consequences. Classical liberals accept that markets and civil society can fail, but they argue government agents generally lack both the competence and the motivation to intervene in ways that fix rather than exacerbate the problems (Mueller, 2003). The first set of arguments is deontological; the second is consequentialist. Early classical liberal thinkers, such as Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and David Hume, did not quite recognize this distinction. They made both arguments without any apparent worry that these were different kinds of argument. But Robert Nozick, the most famous libertarian philosopher of the Twentieth Century, seemed to focus almost entirely on rebutting deontological arguments against libertarianism with providing deontological arguments of his own. This tendency, along with the radical contrarianism of certain other mid‐Twentieth Century libertarians, seems to cause the perception that libertarians are impractical and inhumane (Barry, 1975; Sachs, 2012). In contrast to Nozick, contemporary classical liberal thought is largely pre‐occupied with social justice issues and with assessing the expected consequences of adopting various institutions and policies. In a sense, this a return to Adam Smith and origins of classical liberal thought: Contemporary classical liberals are not so much synthesizing left‐liberalism and classical liberalism as they are instead clarifying the basic concerns that have driven mainline classical liberal thought all along.2.

ABSTRACTJason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works intends to offer a novel account of what propaganda is, how it works, and what damage it does inside a democratic culture. The book succeeds in showing that, contrary to the stereotype, propaganda need not be false or misleading. However, Stanley offers contradictory definitions of propaganda, and his theory, which is both over- and under-inclusive, is applied in a dismissive, highly ideological way. In the end, it remains unclear how much damage propaganda does. Voters in modern democracies would be ignorant and irrational even without propaganda.

Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. _The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism_ helps readers fully examine this alternative, without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters--all written specifically for this volume--are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertarian theories? Part III asks, what is the right way to think about property rights and the market? Part IV asks, how should we think about the state? Finally, part V asks, how well can libertarianism deal with some of the major policy challenges of our day, such as immigration, trade, religion in politics, and paternalism in a free market. Among the _Handbook_’s chapters are those from critics who write about what they believe libertarians get right as well as others from leading libertarian theorists who identify what they think libertarians get wrong. As a whole, the _Handbook_ provides a comprehensive, clear-eyed look at what libertarianism has been and could be, and why it matters.

Most economists believe capitalism is a compromise with selfish human nature. As Adam Smith put it, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Capitalism works better than socialism, according to this thinking, only because we are not kind and generous enough to make socialism work. If we were saints, we would be socialists. In Why Not Capitalism ?, Jason Brennan attacks this widely held belief, arguing that capitalism would remain the best system even if we were morally perfect. Even in an ideal world, private property and free markets would be the best way to promote mutual cooperation, social justice, harmony, and prosperity. Socialists seek to capture the moral high ground by showing that ideal socialism is morally superior to realistic capitalism. But, Brennan responds, ideal capitalism is superior to ideal socialism, and so capitalism beats socialism at every level. Clearly, engagingly, and at times provocatively written, Why Not Capitalism? will cause readers of all political persuasions to re-evaluate where they stand vis-à-vis economic priorities and systems—as they exist now and as they might be improved in the future

Carl Hoefer has argued that determinism in block universes does not privilege any particular time slice as the fundamental determiner of other time slices. He concludes from this that our actions are free, insofar as they are pieces of time slices we may legitimately regard as fundamental determiners. However, I argue that Hoefer does not adequately deal with certain remaining problems. For one, there remain pervasive asymmetries in causation and the macroscopic efficacy of our actions. I suggest that what Hoefer may have shown us is that causation, not determinism, was the threat to free will all along. Additionally, Hoefer might avoid the problem of the asymmetry of macroscopic efficacy by noting we have a very small region of space-time completely determined by our choices. However, this move implies our freedom to act is freedom to do very little, given that the region is trivial. I suggest that Hoefer should instead claim that we do have pervasive macroscopic efficacy toward the past, though I am unsure of how well this thesis works. Regardless, there remains a problem that the inside-out perspective requires us to see our choices as brute facts or random occurrences. Attempts to resolve this problem seem to require either a theory of agent causation or a traditional compatibilist argument, making Hoefer’s thesis extraneous, unless he can show us that these require the inside-out perspective. However, Hoefer has not yet shown us this, so there is work to be done.

We aim to show anti-commodification theorists that their complaints about the scope of the market are exaggerated. There are we agree things that should not be bought and sold but that’s only because they are things people shouldn’t have or do or exchange in the first place. Beyond that we argue there are legitimate moral worries about how we buy trade and sell but no legitimate worries about what we buy trade and sell. In almost every interesting case where they have argued markets are morally impermissible on the contrary we argue such markets are permissible. Where they see the market as having a fundamentally amoral ethos or as tending to corrupt us we see it as moral and morally ameliorative. Where they think the solution is to contract the market we think the solution is to expand it.

This paper argues that mandatory, government-enforced vaccination can be justified even within a libertarian political framework. If so, this implies that the case for mandatory vaccination is very strong indeed as it can be justified even within a framework that, at first glance, loads the philosophical dice against that conclusion. I argue that people who refuse vaccinations violate the ‘clean hands principle’, a moral principle that prohibits people from participating in the collective imposition of unjust harm or risk of harm. In a libertarian framework, individuals may be forced to accept certain vaccines not because they have an enforceable duty to serve the common, and not because cost–benefit analysis recommends it, but because anti-vaxxers are wrongfully imposing undue harm upon others.

The common image of the fully virtuous person is of someone with perfect self‐command and self‐perception, who always makes correct evaluations. However, modesty appears to be a real virtue, and it seems contradictory for someone to believe that she is modest. Accordingly, traditional defenders of phronesis (the view that virtue involves practical wisdom) deny that modesty is a virtue, while defenders of modesty such as Julia Driver deny that phronesis is required for virtue. I offer a new theory of modesty—the two standards account—under which phronesis and modesty are reconciled. Additionally, since the two standards account involves reflection on moral ideals, I provide an account of the proper nature of moral ideals.

According to the commonsense view of civic virtue, the places to exercise civic virtue are largely restricted to politics. In this article, I argue for a more expansive view of civic virtue, and argue that one can exercise civic virtue equally well through working for or running a for-profit business. I argue that this conclusion follows from four relatively uncontroversial premises: (1) the consensus definition of “civic virtue”, (2) the standard, most popular theory of virtuous activity, (3) a conception of the common good widely shared by liberal political philosophers, and (4) the mainstream economic theory of for-profit business

:This essay argues for what may be called the parity thesis: Whenever it would be morally permissible to kill a civilian in self-defense or in defense of others against that civilian's unjust acts, it would also be permissible to kill government officials, including police officers, prison officers, generals, lawmakers, and even chief executives. I argue that in realistic circumstances, violent resistance to state injustice is permissible, even and perhaps especially in reasonably just democratic regimes. When civilians see officials about to commit certain severe injustices — such as police officers engaging in excessive violence — they may sometimes act unilaterally and kill the offending officials. I consider and rebut a wide range of objections, including objections against vigilantism, objections based on state legitimacy, and objections that violence can produce bad fallout. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission.

Just because one has the right to vote does not mean just any vote is right. Citizens should not vote badly. This duty to avoid voting badly is grounded in a general duty not to engage in collectively harmful activities when the personal cost of restraint is low. Good governance is a public good. Bad governance is a public bad. We should not be contributing to public bads when the benefit to ourselves is low. Many democratic theorists agree that we shouldn’t vote badly, but that’s because they think we should vote well. This demands too much of citizens.

American universities rely upon a large workforce of adjunct faculty—contract workers who receive low pay, no benefits, and no job security. Many news sources, magazines, and activists claim that adjuncts are exploited and should receive better pay and treatment. This paper never affirms nor denies that adjuncts are exploited. Instead, we show that any attempt to provide a significantly better deal faces unpleasant constraints and trade-offs. “Adjunct justice” would cost universities somewhere between an additional $15–50 billion per year. At most, universities can provide justice for a minority of adjuncts at the expense of the majority, as well as at the expense of poor students. Universities may indeed be exploiting adjuncts, but they cannot rectify this mistake without significant moral costs.

Moral theory is no substitute for virtue, but virtue is no substitute for moral theory. Many critics of moral theory, with Richard Posner being one prominent recent example, complain that moral theory is too abstract, that it cannot generally be used to derive particular rights and wrongs, and that it does not improve people's characters. Posner complains that it is thus of no use to legal theorists. This article defends moral theory, and to some degree, philosophical inquiry in general, against such pragmatic complaints. I argue that the primary goal of moral theorizing is not pragmatic, but theoretical. Moral theory aims at explanation, at answering certain kinds of questions about morality. Moral theory is meant to deepen our insight into morality but, to count as deepening our insight, it need not provide a formula for calculating what to do in a particular circumstance, nor must it make us more virtuous. I provide an account of the scope and nature of explanation provided by moral theory as well as an account of why such explanations can be worth having, even if they were to have few pragmatic consequences.

May you sell your vote? May you sell your kidney? May gay men pay surrogates to bear them children? May spouses pay each other to watch the kids, do the dishes, or have sex? Should we allow the rich to genetically engineer gifted, beautiful children? Should we allow betting markets on terrorist attacks and natural disasters? Most people shudder at the thought. To put some goods and services for sale offends human dignity. If everything is commodified , then nothing is sacred. The market corrodes our character. Or so most people say. In Markets without Limits , Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski give markets a fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was not any previously. Thus, the authors claim, the question of what rightfully may be bought and sold has a simple answer: if you may do it for free, you may do it for money. Contrary to the conservative consensus, they claim there are no inherent limits to what can be bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell

In Why Not Socialism ?, G. A. Cohen argues that market society and capitalism are intrinsically repugnant. He asks us to imagine an ideal camping trip, which becomes increasing repugnant as it shifts from living by socialist to capitalist principles. In this paper, I expose the limits of this style of argument by making a parallel argument, which shows how an ideal anarchist camping trip becomes increasingly repugnant as the campsite turns from anarchism to democracy. When we see why this style of argument fails to generate interesting objections to democracy, we then see why it also fails to generate interesting objections to market society.