Jason Brennan

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.

Jason Brennan
Born	Jason F. Brennan 1979 (age 44–45)
Alma mater	University of Arizona
Era	21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic Libertarianism Arizona School liberalism
Institutions	Georgetown University
Main interests	Political philosophy · Applied ethics · Democratic theory Libertarianism
Notable ideas	Ethics of voting
Website	jasonfbrennan.com

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. 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.

His case against democracy

Irrationality of voters

Proponents of noocratic theory cite evidence that suggests voters in modern democracies are largely ignorant, misinformed and irrational. Therefore, one person one vote mechanism proposed by democracy cannot be used to produce efficient policy outcomes, for which the transfer of power to a smaller, informed and rational group would be more appropriate. The irrationality of voters inherent in democracies can be explained by two major behavioral and cognitive patterns. Firstly, most of the voters think that the marginal contribution of their vote will not make a difference on election outcomes; therefore, they do not find it useful to inform themselves on political matters. In other terms, due to the required time and effort of acquiring new information, voters rationally prefer to remain ignorant. Moreover, it has been shown that most citizens process political information in deeply biased, partisan, motivated ways rather than in dispassionate, rational ways. This psychological phenomenon causes voters to strongly identify themselves with a certain political group, specifically find evidence to support arguments aligning with their preferred ideological inclinations, and eventually vote with a high level of bias.

Democracy's susceptibility to bad policies

Irrational political behaviors of voters prevent them from making calculated choices and opting for the right policy proposals. On the other hand, many political experiments have shown that as voters get more informed, they tend to support better policies, demonstrating that acquisition of information has a direct impact on rational voting.

Use of expertise for efficient outcomes

According to noocrats, given the complex nature of political decisions, it is not reasonable to assume that a citizen would have the necessary knowledge to decide on means to achieve their political aims. In general, political actions require a lot of social scientific knowledge from various fields, such as economics, sociology, international relations, and public policy; however, an ordinary voter is hardly specialized enough in any of those fields to make the optimal decision. To address this issue, Christiano proposes a ruling system based on division of political labor, in which citizens set the agenda for political discussions and determine the aims of the society, whereas legislators are in charge of deciding on the means to achieve these aims. For noocrats, transferring the decision-making mechanism to a body of specifically trained, specialized and experienced body is expected to result in superior and more efficient policy outcomes. Recent economic success of some countries that have a sort of noocratic ruling element provides basis for this particular argument in favor of noocracy.

For instance, Singapore has a political system that favors meritocracy; the path to government in Singapore is structured in such a way that only those with above-average skills are identified with strict university-entrance exams, recruiting processes, etc., and then rigorously trained to be able to devise best the solutions that benefit the entire society. In the words of the country's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore is a society based on effort and merit, not wealth or privilege depending on birth. In order to develop further Singapore's technocratic system, some thinkers, like Parag Khanna, have proposed for the country to adapt a model of direct technocracy, demanding citizen input in essential matters through online polls, referendums, etc., and asking for a committee of experts to analyze this data to determine the best course of action.

Differing modalities of elite governance

Adhering to Jason F. Brennan's taxonomy of the roughly equivalent concept he himself instead designates "epistocracy", one may already discern some basic ways of rendering governance more wise a process:

• “Restricted suffrage”: Give voting rights only to those who prove themselves sufficiently well informed to earn the right to cast a ballot. Test to determine the right to vote. Everyone would be eligible to take the exam, but only those who show mastery of the basic concepts of political science, economics, and sociology would earn permission to vote. To make the test fair, focus the questions on objective topics. To create an incentive, voters who pass the test could receive a $1,000 bonus. A citizen who failed the test but wanted to vote could pay a penalty of $2,000, similar to a gas-guzzler tax.

• “Plural voting”: Everyone gets a vote, but the better-educated and more-informed get more votes. This system, espoused by the philosopher John Stuart Mill, holds that political participation helps voters feel empowered. It also acknowledges that stupid voters make bad decisions. It favors those who can prove their competence.

• “Enfranchisement lottery” [also known as Sortition]: Before each election, hold a random drawing to grant voting rights. Winners would have to earn the right to vote, perhaps by participating in forums with other voters. The random nature of the lottery would ensure the electorate reflects the demographics of the larger population.

• “Epistocratic veto”: Every citizen retains the right to vote, but an epistocratic branch of government could overrule democratic deliberations. Membership in this deliberative body would be open to any member of society, but qualifying would require passing difficult tests and undergoing criminal background checks. People with conflicts of interest would be disqualified. This council of expert overseers couldn’t create new legislation or regulation but could overrule decisions it deems misguided. The council could block the candidacies of unqualified candidates; this might create gridlock but would force voters to consider candidates carefully.

• “Simulated oracle”: In this model, all citizens are asked simultaneously to vote on policies or candidates, to take a test of basic political knowledge, and to indicate their demographics. With these three sets of data, the government can estimate the public’s “enlightened preferences,” for example, what a fully-informed but demographically-identical voting public would want. It implements these enlightened preferences.

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

See also

• American philosophy

External links

• 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
• Appearances on C-SPAN