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International Aid: Not the Cure You're Hoping ForIn Bob Fischer (ed.), Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues that Divide Us, Oxford University Press. pp. 160-168. 2019.
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44Review of John Kekes: Moderate Conservatism: Reclaiming the Center (review)Ethics 134 (3): 411-416. 2024.
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80Compulsory Voting: For and AgainstCambridge University Press. 2014.In many democracies, voter turnout is low and getting lower. If the people choose not to govern themselves, should they be forced to do so? For Jason Brennan, compulsory voting is unjust and a petty violation of citizens' liberty. The median non-voter is less informed and rational, as well as more biased, than the median voter. According to Lisa Hill, compulsory voting is a reasonable imposition on personal liberty. Hill points to the discernible benefits of compulsory voting and argues that hig…Read more
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37Get a Job and Pay Your Taxes! What Utopophiles Must Say to the Western PoorSocial Philosophy and Policy 39 (1): 48-67. 2022.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 t…Read more
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4Psychological Freedom, the Last Frontier: 1963In A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: From Metaphysics to Psychology Shackled by Social Pressure Shackled by Self‐Deception Shackled by Discontent Solutions Shackled by the Dearth of Shackles Discussion Acknowledgments.
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2Introduction: Conceptions of FreedomIn A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Histories of Liberties Institutions Discussion Acknowledgments.
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4Civil Liberty: 1954In A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Must Liberty and Equality Come Apart? Freedom of Conscience Self‐Ownership and Universal Suffrage Slavery Women's Rights The Cold War Thurgood Marshall Discussion Acknowledgments.
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5Religious Freedom: 1517In A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Early Religious Freedom The Eve of Revolution Luther and Liberalism John Knox and the Scottish Enlightenment Natural Law Toward Religious Freedom Conclusion Discussion.
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Freedom of Commerce: 1776In A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Freedom from Poverty Freedom from War Ingredients of Commercial Progress Smith's Nineteenth‐Century Legacy66 Smith's Twentieth‐Century Legacy When Formal Freedom Is Enough Discussion.
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8The Rule of Law: AD 1075In A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Feudalism Magna Carta28 The Basic Idea: No One Is Above the Law The Modern West Takes Shape From Law to Commerce Equality Before the Law Conclusion Discussion Acknowledgments.
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2IndexIn A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Prehistory of Commerce Prehistory of Technology Prehistory of Slavery From Prehistory to History Rome and Christianity Acknowledgments.
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21"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 peo…Read more
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35Why Paternalists Must Endorse EpistocracyJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21 (3). 2022.Recent findings from psychology and behavioral economics suggest that we are “predictably irrational” in the pursuit of our interests. Paternalists from both the social sciences and philosophy use these findings to defend interfering with people's consumption choices for their own good. We should tax soda, ban cigarettes, and mandate retirement savings to make people healthier and wealthier than they’d be on their own. Our thesis is that the standard arguments offered in support of restricting p…Read more
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258Should Employers Pay a Living Wage?Journal of Business Ethics 157 (1): 15-26. 2019.This paper critiques many of the leading popular and philosophical arguments purporting to show employers have a duty to pay a living wage. Some of these arguments fail on their own terms. Some are not really about a living wage. The best of them fail to show employers per se owe a living wage; at best, they should that governments should supplement market incomes though a negative income tax or some other redistributive device.
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19Preface: Dangerous PhilosophyIn When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice, Princeton University Press. 2018.
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60Democracy as Uninformed Non‐ConsentJournal of Applied Philosophy 36 (2): 205-211. 2019.Carol Gould argues that democratic institutions can serve as mechanisms of informed consent or could at least facilitate creating regulations and other structures which facilitate informed consent in bioethics, medicine, and elsewhere. I am sceptical. I argue that democracies cannot serve as vehicles of consent, let alone informed consent. Further, the problems of democratic ignorance and irrationality created significant barriers to democratic deliberation helping to produce better regulations …Read more
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9Political philosophy: an introductionCato Institute. 2016.Fundamental values and why we disagree -- The problem of justice and the nature of rights -- The nature and value of liberty -- Property rights -- Equality and distributive justice -- Is social justice a mistake? -- Civil rights : freedom of speech and lifestyle -- The scope of economic liberty -- Government authority and legitimacy -- What counts as ''society"? -- Why political philosophy needs political economy.
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Murderers at the ballot box: when politicians may lie to bad votersIn Emily Crookston, David Killoren & Jonathan Trerise (eds.), Ethics in Politics: The Rights and Obligations of Individual Political Agents, Routledge. 2016.
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26Business ethics for better behaviorOxford University Press. 2021.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 …Read more
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20Democracy: a guided tourOxford University Press. 2023.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…Read more
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1In defense of epistocracy : enlightened preference votingIn Chris Melenovsky (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Routledge. 2022.
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74Diversity for Justice vs. Diversity for Performance: Philosophical and Empirical TensionsJournal of Business Ethics 187 (3): 433-447. 2022.Many business ethicists, activists, analysts, and corporate leaders claim that businesses are obligated to promote diversity for the sake of justice. Many also say—good news!—that diversity promotes the bottom line. We do need not choose between social justice and profits. This paper splashes some cold water on the attempt to mate these two claims. On the contrary, I argue, there is philosophical tension between arguments which say diversity is a matter of justice and (empirically sound) argumen…Read more
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44Debating Democracy: Do We Need More or Less?Oxford University Press. 2021.In this accessible book, leading scholars Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore ask, what good is democracy and is there any better alternative? Brennan argues that democracy suffers from built-in systematic flaws. There is no way to fix these flaws--we can only contain them, or jettison democracy for a better system of representative government. Landemore argues that our problem is that we have not been using real democracy. Real democracy--in which citizensexercise more genuine power--can overcom…Read more
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14The Business of Liberty: Freedom and Information in Ethics, Politics, and Law, by Boudewijn de Bruin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 240 pp (review)Business Ethics Quarterly 32 (4): 671-674. 2022.
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143Why not anarchism?Politics, Philosophy and Economics 21 (4): 415-436. 2022.Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 4, Page 415-436, November 2022. Recent debates over ideal theory have reinvigorated interest in the question of anarchy. Would a perfectly just society need—or even permit—a state? Ideal anarchists such as Jason Brennan, G.A. Cohen, Christopher Freiman, and Jacob Levy argue that strict compliance with justice obviates the need for a state. Ideal statists such as David Estlund, Gregory Kavka, and John Rawls think that coercive political instituti…Read more
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100Why Swing‐State Voting Is Not Effective Altruism: The Bad News about the Good News about VotingJournal of Political Philosophy 31 (1): 60-79. 2022.Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.
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18Why It’s Ok to Want to Be RichRoutledge. 2020.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 he…Read more
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63Giving epistocracy a Fair HearingInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (1): 35-49. 2022.ABSTRACT Thanks to Inquiry for hosting this symposium, and thanks to Ilya Somin, Robert Talisse, Gordon Allen, and Enzo Rossi for participating it. It’s an honor. I’m especially grateful for their contributions because the five of us come from similar enough starting points that our debates can be productive. None of us have any patience for romantic, pie-in-the-sky depictions of democracy or for the knee-jerk dogma that all the problems of democracy can be fixed with more democracy. All are con…Read more
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53This Paper Attacks a Strawman but the Strawman Wins: A reply to van Basshuysen and WhiteKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 31 (4): 429-446. 2021.ARRAY
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66A libertarian case for mandatory vaccinationJournal of Medical Ethics Recent Issues 44 (1): 37-43. 2017.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 imposi…Read more
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Georgetown UniversityRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
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Government and Democracy |