Money, Markets, and Morals

What should be the role of money and markets in our society? Are there some things that money should not be able to buy? Should people be permitted to buy sex, votes, babies, citizenship, or college admission? What about buying and selling the right to pollute, procreate, immigrate, discriminate, or to hunt endangered species? Should we use markets to govern health care, education, privacy, or criminal law? The course considers what moral limits, if any, the law should impose on market exchanges.

Drawing upon classical philosophical works and contemporary moral and political controversies, we attempt to determine what goods and social practices should not be up for sale.