Geoffrey Brennan

(In Memoriam)

An economist by training, Geoffrey Brennan works actively on issues at the intersection of economics, rationality, and political philosophy. In addition to his position here, which brings him to Chapel Hill for one semester each year, Brennan is a professor at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He is Director of the Duke-UNC joint program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Brennan is the author of nine books, including, with James Buchanan, The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (1985); with Loren Lomasky, Democracy and Decision: the Pure Theory of Electoral Preference (1993); with Alan Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires (2000) and most recently, with Philip Pettit, The Economy of Esteem (2004). He is also the author of over 100 articles.  Sample philosophical publications: “Pareto Optimal Redistribution: The Case of Malice and Envy,” Journal of Public Economics (1972); “Pareto Optimal Redistribution: The Non-Altruistic Dimension,” Public Choice (1973); “The Normative Purpose of Economic Science,” (with Buchanan)International Review of Law and Economics (1981); “Restrictive Consequentialism,” (with Pettit) Australasian Journal of Philosophy(1986); “Methodological Individualism Under Fire,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation (1987); “The Political Economy of Communist Reform,” Public Choice Studies (1991); “Freedom, Government and Economics,” Transformation (1991); “Invisible and Intangible Hands,” (with Pettit) Synthese (1993); “Constitutional Political Economy: The Political Economy of Homo Economicus?” (with Hamlin) Journal of Political Philosophy (1995); “The Hidden Economy of Esteem,”Economics and Philosophy (2000); “Constitutional Reticence and Expressive Voting,” Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy (2000); “Bargaining over Beliefs,” (with Goodin) Ethics (2001); “Republican Liberty and Resilience,” (with Hamlin) Monist (2001); “Analytic Conservatism” British Journal of Political Science (2004), (with Alan Hamlin); “E-reputation and E-esteem” Analyse und Kritik  (2004), (with Philip Pettit); “The Myth of Ownership: Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel,Constitutional Political Economy (2005); “Conservatism, Idealism and Cardinality” Analysis (2006), [with Alan Hamlin]; “Against Reviving Republicanism” Politics, Philosophy and Economics (2006), [with Loren Lomasky]; “Discounting the Future, Yet Again” Politics, Philosophy and Economics (2007); “Approximate Truth” Homo Economicus (2007), (with W. Guthand H. Kliemt); “Revisionist Public Choice Theory” New Political Economy (2008), [with Alan Hamlin]; “The Economy of Privacy: Institutional Design in the Economy of Esteem” The Monist (2008); “The Psychological Dimension of Homo Economicus” Public Choice; “Lessons for Ethics from Economics” Philosophical Issues (2008).