Jason F. Brennan (born 1979) is an American philosopher and business professor. He is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Brennan writes about democratic theory, the ethics of voting, competence and power, freedom, and the moral foundations of commercial society. His work focuses on the intersection of normative political philosophy and the empirical social sciences, especially on questions about voter behavior, pathologies of democracy, and the consequences of freedom. He argues that most citizens have a moral obligation not to vote.
Early life
Brennan grew up in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and Hudson, New Hampshire, where he attended Alvirne High School. He attended Case Western Reserve University and the University of New Hampshire as an undergraduate. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Arizona under the direction of David Schmidtz.
From 2006 to 2011, he was a research fellow at the Political Theory Project, and later assistant professor of philosophy at Brown University.
Books
A Brief History of Liberty, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, with David Schmidtz
The Ethics of Voting, Princeton University Press, 2011
Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford University Press, 2012
Compulsory Voting: For and Against, Cambridge University Press, 2014, with Lisa Hill
Why Not Capitalism?, Routledge, 2014
Markets without Limits, Routledge, 2015, with Peter Jaworski
Political Philosophy: An Introduction, Cato Institute, 2016
Against Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2016
In Defense of Openness: Why Global Freedom Is the Humane Solution to Global Poverty, Oxford University Press, 2018, with Bas van der Vossen
When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice, Princeton University Press, 2018
Cracks in the Ivory Tower, Oxford University Press, 2019, with Phil Magness
Injustice for All. How Financial Incentives Corrupted and Can Fix the US Criminal Justice System, Routledge, 2019, with Chris W. Surprenant
Good Work If You Can Get It: How to Succeed in Academia, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020
Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich, Routledge, 2020
Business Ethics for Better Behavior, Oxford University Press, 2021, with William English, John Hasnas and Peter Jaworski
Debating Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2021, with Hélène Landemore
Democracy: A Guided Tour, Oxford University Press, 2023
Questioning Beneficence, Routledge Press, 2024, with Samuel Arnold, Richard Yetter Chappell, and Ryan Davis
Debating Libertarianism, Oxford University Press, 2025, with Samuel Freeman
Debating Capitalism, Oxford University Press, 2026, with Richard Arneson
Glass Houses: Choosing Grace in a Judgmental World, Oxford University Press, 2026
Libertarianism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2027
Book chapters
Brennan, Jason; van der Vossen, Bas (2018). "Part II: Questioning Libertarian Principals; Ch. 14: The Myths of the Self-Ownership Thesis". In Brennan, Jason; van der Vossen, Bas; Schmidtz, David (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 199–211. ISBN 978-0367870591.
Jason Brennan's faculty page
Bleeding Heart Libertarians – blog
200-Proof Liberals – blog
"On the ethics of voting" (interview with Jason Brennan), 3:AM Magazine, January 14, 2013