Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski join Kim Krawiec, student co-hosts Joe Keys and Jake Ross, and members of UVA Law’s Taboo Trades seminar to discuss the second edition of Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests, a foundational work in the debate over the moral limits of markets. Their central claim is provocative: if you may do something for free and whether to do it is within your discretion, there is some way you may do it for money. The argument leaves room for moral duties and extensive regulation while challenging critics to explain what payment itself makes wrong. The conversation explores the burden of proof in arguments against markets, the famous Israeli daycare-fine study, and whether money corrupts our motives or changes what we learn about a situation. Examples ranging from dog breeding and education to organ markets and lifesaving rescues raise difficult questions about inequality, discretion, and the gap between moral permission and workable legal rules. About the GuestsJason Brennan is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. A political philosopher, he writes about democracy, liberty, and the ethics of markets. Peter Jaworski is an associate teaching professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where he teaches business ethics. His research examines the moral limits of markets, including compensation for blood plasma donors. He was Taboo Trades’ inaugural guest in season one, episode one. About the HostKimberly D. Krawiec is the Charles O. Gregory Professor of Law and Glynn Family Bicentennial Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. She studies contested exchanges, including organ donation, reproductive markets, and sex work, as well as financial regulation and business organizations. She hosts Taboo Trades. About the Student Co-HostsJoe Keys is a third-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law and a student co-host of this episode. Jake Ross is a second-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law and a student co-host of this episode. Books and Articles Discussed, Referenced, or RelatedJason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski, Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests, 2nd ed. (Routledge 2022).Jason Brennan and Peter Martin Jaworski, “Markets without Symbolic Limits,” 125 Ethics 1053–1077 (2015).Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, “A Fine Is a Price,” 29 Journal of Legal Studies 1–17 (2000).Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, “Pay Enough or Don’t Pay at All,” 115 Quarterly Journal of Economics 791–810 (2000).Michael J. Sandel, “How Markets Crowd Out Morals,” with Herbert Gintis’s response, “Giving Economists Their Due,” and Sandel’s reply, “Keeping Markets in Their Place” (Boston Review 2012).Mark Wells, “Markets with Some Limits,” 51 Journal of Value Inquiry 611–618 (2017).Peter M. Jaworski, Bloody Well Pay Them: The Case for Voluntary Remunerated Plasma Collections (2020).Kimberly D. Krawiec, “Markets, Repugnance, and Externalities,” 19 Journal of Institutional Economics 944–955 (2023).Kieran Healy and Kimberly D. Krawiec, “Repugnance Management and Transactions in the Body,” 107 American Economic Review 86–90 (2017).Related EpisodePlasma with Peter Jaworski — Taboo Trades, season one, episode one (August 25, 2020).
