THE ETHICS OF VOTING (Princeton: 2011)

Nothing is more integral to democracy than voting. Most people believe that every citizen has the civic duty or moral obligation to vote, that any sincere vote is morally acceptable, and that buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong. In this provocative book, Jason Brennan challenges our fundamental assumptions about voting, revealing why it is not a duty for most citizens—in fact, he argues, many people owe it to the rest of us not to vote. Bad choices at the polls can result in unjust laws, needless wars, and calamitous economic policies. Brennan shows why voters have duties to make informed decisions in the voting booth, to base their decisions on sound evidence for what will create the best possible policies, and to promote the common good rather than their own self-interest. They must vote well—or not vote at all. Brennan explains why voting is not necessarily the best way for citizens to exercise their civic duty, and why some citizens need to stay away from the polls to protect the democratic process from their uninformed, irrational, or immoral votes. In a democracy, every citizen has the right to vote. This book reveals why sometimes it’s best if they don’t.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIBERTY with David Schmidtz (Blackwell, 2010):

READ THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER BY CLICKING HERE.

From the jacket:

Through a fusion of philosophical, social scientific, and historical methods, A Brief History of Liberty provides a comprehensive, philosophically-informed portrait of the elusive nature of one of our most cherished ideals.

• Offers a succinct yet thorough survey of personal freedom

• Explores the true meaning of liberty, drawing philosophical lessons about liberty from history

• Considers the writings of key historical figures from Socrates and Erasmus to Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Adam Smith

• Combines philosophical rigor with social scientific analysis

• Argues that liberty refers to a range of related but specific ideas rather than limiting the concept to one definition

Dave and I debate some philosophical themes from the book with Phillip Pettit, John Christman, and Tom Palmer here: Conceptions of Liberty Debate

"The Right to a Competent Electorate," Philosophical Quarterly (2011, forthcoming). I argue that the practice of unrestricted, universal suffrage is unjust. Citizens have a right that any political power held over them should be exercised by competent people in a competent way. Universal suffrage violates this right. To satisfy citizen's right to competent government, a democracy with universal suffrage in most cases must be replaced by a moderate epistocracy, in which suffrage is restricted to citizens of sufficient political competence. However, epistocracy itself seems to run afoul of the Qualified Acceptability Requirement, which holds that political power must be distributed in ways against which there are no qualified objections. Despite this, I argue both that moderate epistocracy with restricted suffrage is less intrinsically unjust than democracy with universal suffrage, and that moderate epistocracy will likely produce more just outcomes than democracy. Thus, epistocracy is more just than democracy, even if not perfectly just.

"Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (2009), forthcoming. 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.

See me discuss this paper on Bloggingheads TV.

"Scepticism about Philosophy", Ratio (forthcoming) Suppose a person who is agnostic about most philosophical issues wishes to have true philosophical beliefs but equally wishes to avoid false philosophical beliefs. I argue that this truth-seeking, error-avoiding agnostic would not have good grounds for pursuing philosophy. Widespread disagreement shows that pursuing philosophy is not a reliable method of discovering true answers to philosophical questions. More likely than not, pursuing philosophy leads to false belief. Many attempts to rebut this sceptical argument fail..

"Beyond the Bottom Line: The Theoretical Goals of Moral Theorizing", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2008) Richard Posner complains that moral theory doesn't give us an algorithm for right action or transform us into good people. Here I explain how moral theory would have value as a theoretical, explanatory project even if Posner were right.

"Modesty without Illusion", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2007) Here's the problem: Modest people can't know they're modest, right? But virtuous people (on the most popular theories of virtue) are supposed to have phronesis, i.e., they're supposed to make correct moral judgments. Julia Driver says that modesty shows these popular accounts of virtue are wrong. I offer a new theory of modesty that reconciles phronesis with modesty.

2012   Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

2012 "The Right to a Competent Electorate, " Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)

2012 "Classical Liberalism," in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. David Estlund (New York: Oxford University Press), with John Tomasi.

2012 "For-Profit Business as Civic Virtue," The Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming.

2012 "Political Liberty: Who Needs It?" Social Philosophy and Policy.

2012  "Is Market Society Intrinsically Repugnant?" Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming.

2012 "Why Liberal States Should Accommodate Tax Resistors," Public Affairs Quarterly (forthcoming)

2012  "Responsible Voting," in Civic Education and the Future of American Citizenship, ed. Jonathan White and Nathan Busch. Lanham: Lexington Books.

2012  "Against Mandatory Voting," in Debating Reform: Conflicting Perspectives on How to Fix the American Political System, 2nd edition, ed. Richard Ellis and Michael Nelson. New York: Sage.

2012 The Ethics of Voting, expanded paperback edition.

2011 The Ethics of Voting (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

2011 "Condorcet's Jury Theorem and the Optimal Number of Voters," Politics (forthcoming).

2010 A Brief History of Liberty (Oxford: Blackwell), with David Schmidtz

2010 "Scepticism about Philosophy," Ratio 23.

2010 "Liberty," in Political and Civic Leadership, ed. Richard A. Couto (Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing).

2010 "Liberty," invited entry in The Encyclopedia of Political Theory, ed. Simon Caney (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing).

2009 "Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87.

2009 "Tuck on the Rationality of Voting," Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.

2008 "Beyond the Bottom Line: The Theoretical Goals of Moral Theorizing," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 28: 277-296.

2008 "What if Kant Had Had a Cognitive Theory of the Emotions?," Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter).

2007 "Modesty without Illusion," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75: 111-128.

2007 "Free Will in the Block Universe," Philosophia 35: 207-217.

2007 "Dominating Nature," Environmental Values 16: 513-528.

2007 "Rawls's Paradox," Constitutional Political Economy 18: 287-299.

2006 "Marijuana," in Social Issues in America, ed. James Ciment (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe), 1044-1054.

2006 "The Experience of Freedom", invited review of C. Fred Alford, Rethinking Freedom (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), in Review of Politics 68: 687-689.

2005 "Choice and Excellence: A Defense of Millian Individualism", Social Theory and Practice 31: 483-498.

2004 "Illiberal Liberals," Review Journal of Political Philosophy 2: 59-103.