Aaron James
Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Chair
PH.D., Harvard University
Email: aaron.james@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
96 Humanities Instructional Building
Mail Code: 4555
Irvine, CA 92697
96 Humanities Instructional Building
Mail Code: 4555
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Ethics (foundations and moral theory), Political Philosophy
Academic Distinctions
Awarded ACLS's Burkhardt fellowship in 2008, for study (2009-10) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. Visiting Professor at NYU, Department of Philosophy, in fall of 2013. Visiting Scholar at ANU summer 2016.
Research Abstract
My most recent book, with finance and law ace Robert Hockett (Cornell law), is Money from Nothing: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying About Debt and Love the Federal Reserve (Melville House Press 2020). I also have new academic papers on money and related topics, which you can find below.
In political philosophy, I've written a book on fairness in the global economy, from a social contract perspective (Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy, OUP 2012). I've also written about John Rawls's constructive method, its neglected realist and interpretive aspects, and its application to social structures within and across major domestic institutions (such as international trade).
I'm slowly working on two academic books that urge political philosophers to take money and banking seriously. A first book is on money's nature as a public thing, the importance of public banking, and how to reconstruct the social contract tradition, liberty, equality, and the relation between them. A second book is about money and public banking in a global economy. It deepens and extends my practice-based analysis in _Fairness In Practice_, with applications to public finance, basic income and social insurance, and climate adaptation.
In moral theory I have an ongoing interest in contractualism, especially in view of risk.
Also in ethics I work on rationalism and the foundations of moral and practical judgment, with particular interest in constructivism (what it is, how it might explain objectivity, and whether it could provide a foundational theory). Having now written about surfing for a general audience (see below), I'm increasingly interested in the exercise of skill, embodiment, attunement and what they mean for practical reason and the foundations of value. I'm gathering thoughts for an eventual book on the know how of reasoning.
So that's three book projects in progress:
1. Money's Republic
2. Money in Practice: Fair Finance in a Global Economy
3. The Talent of Reason: Embodied, Social, Political
Also in the works is a book of philosophical autobiography about my charity misadventures in Sumatra. (Joke title: The Ineffective Altruist.)
Academic Publications
Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012
“Does Adam Smith Have a Theory of Money?,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 46, 2026,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052525100502
“Money as Res Publica,” Free & Equal 1, no 2, 2025
https://freeandequaljournal.org/article/id/17777/
“Fragmentation and Fairness in Global Economic Governance,” Justice in Global Economic Governance, eds. Axel Berger, Clara Brandi, Eszter Kollar, Edinburgh University Press, 2025
“The Credit-Money Hierarchy: A Republican, Egalitarian Appraisal,” Wisconsin International Law Journal, 42, no 2, 2024
"Ideational Structure," Social Philosophy and Policy 41, no 1, 2024
"Kant, Innes, and the Copernican Turn on Money," The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money, Vol. 2, ed. Joseph Tinguely, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
"The Wave Commons: Toward a (Rousseauvian) Theory of Entitlement and its Rationalization," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 51, no 2, 2024
“Money in the Social Contract,” The Philosophy of Money and Finance, eds. Joakim Sandburg and Lisa Warenski, Oxford University Press, 2024
Rethinking Money and Trade,” for the Palgrave Handbook of International Political Theory, ed. David Reidy, 2024
"Revolutions in Work: Green Growth, De-growth, A-growth,” Board Studies: The Political Ontology of Surfing and Skateboarding, eds. Kristin Lawler, David Cline, and Mike Roberts (San Diego State University Press), 2024
“Rawls, Lerner, and the Tax and Spend Booby-Trap: What Happened to Monetary Policy?,” A Theory of Justice at 50, ed. Paul Weithman, Cambridge University Press, 2023
"Money, Recognition, and the Outer Limits of Obliviousness," Synthese 202, no 2, 2023
“Money as a Currency of Justice,” The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, 22(2), 2022
“What the Trade Pioneers Missed: Money,” Journal of Moral and Political Philosophy, 9, no 1, 2022
"Preparing for Mass Unemployment: Precautionary Basic Income," ed. Matthew Liao, Oxford University Press, 2020
"Why We Must Lift the Resource Curse," Beyond Blood Oil, eds. Laurie Shrage and Naomi Zack, Rowman and Littlefield, 2018
"Sovereignty and Associative Obligations," Sovereignty and the New Executive, eds. Claire Finkelstein and Sharon Lloyd, Oxford University Press, 2018
"Constructivism, Intuitionism, Ecumenism," Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice, ed. Serena Olsaretti, 2018
"Investor Rights as Nonsense -- On Stilts," Just Financial Markets?, ed. Lisa Herzog, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017
"Fortune and Fairness in Global Economic Life," Journal of Moral Philosophy, 14, no 3, 2017
"How Cynical Can Ideal Theory Be?," Journal of International Political Theory, 12, no 2, June 2016:118-133
"Fairness in Trade," for Global Political Theory Today, eds. David Held and Pietro Maffettone, Polity Press, 2016
"The Distinctive Significance of Systemic Risk," Ratio Juris, 30, no 3 2016
"How To Construct Global Justice," San Diego Law Review, 52/1013, Fall 2015
“A Theory of Fairness in Trade,” Moral Philosophy and Politics, 1, no 2, 2014. A special issue on fairness in trade, guest edited by David Miller.
“Replies to Critics,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 44, no 2, March 2014: 286-304. A special issue on Fairness in Practice, with discussions by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius, and Kristi Olson. At: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qQSpWUKPzvqUKv5zgAqS/full
"Why Practices?" Raison Politiques, 51, Summer 2013
"Contractualism's (Not So) Slippery Slope," Legal Theory, 18, no 03, 2012: 263-292. At: http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A867FcA4
"Constructing Protagorean Objectivity," Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, eds. James Lenman and Yonatan Shemmer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012
"Political Constructivism," Blackwell Companion to Rawls, eds. David Reidy and Jon Mandle, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
"Constructivism, Moral," International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette, Blackwell
"Contractualism and Political Liberalism," Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, eds. Gerald Gaus and Fred D’Agostino, New York: Taylor and Francis, 2013
"Moral Assurance Problems in Global Context," Hobbes Today: Insights for the 21st Century, ed. Sharon Lloyd, Cambridge University Press, 2012
"The Significance of Distribution," Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon, eds. R. Jay Wallace, Rahul Kumar, and Samuel Freeman, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011
"Global Economic Fairness: Internal Principles," Global Justice and International Economic Law: Opportunities and Challenges, Cambridge University Press, 2012
"Rawlsian Justice in a Common Globe," Sustainability and Security within Liberal Societies, eds. Stephen Gough and Andrew Stables, New York: Routledge, 2008
"Legal and Other Governance In Second Person Perspective," Loyola Law Review, 40, no 2, 2006
"Equality in a Realistic Utopia," Social Theory and Practice, 32, No 4, 2006
"Constructivism about Practical Reasons," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74 no 2, 2007
"Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo," Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33 no 3, 2005
"The Objectivity of Values: Invariance without Explanation," The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44 no 4, 2006
"Distributive Justice without Sovereign Rule: The Case of Trade," Social Theory and Practice, 31 no 4, 2005
“Rights and Circularity in Scanlon’s Contractualism,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1.3, 2004: 369-377
“Power in Social Organization as the Subject of Justice,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 86, 2005: 25-49
Work in Progress
"Money and Other Public Things," for NOMOS
"Hope and Pessimism," for The Oxford Handbook to Rawls
"Meaning In Extremis," for The Journal of Philosophy of Sport
"Reconciled by Narrative Meaning"
The Moral Necessity of Climate Efficiency
“I Owe You”
"The Fairness Argument for International Money"
Academic Miscellany
"APA Comments on Leif Wenar's Blood Oil"
"Sparing the Poor: APA Comments for Darrel Moellendorf."
"Multi-Functionalism about Human Rights: APA Comments for James Nickel."
"Multi-Functionalism about Human Rights: APA Comments for Charles Beitz."
"Deflating Fact-Insensitivity"
Other Very (Very) Important Things
Money from Nothing: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying About Debt and Love the Federal Reserve, with Robert Hockett (Melville House Press, 2020). Also Babel Publishing (Taiwan).
Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry Into a Life of Meaning
by Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2017. Also by Lemniscaat (Netherlands), New Century Publishing (Taiwan), and Pegasus (Turkey). A treatise on what surfer know-how says about questions for the ages (about freedom, control, flow, happiness, being, transcendence, society, the meaning of life) and why all this means we must actually do something about climate change, namely: work less and go surfing instead, in a shorter workweek and more efficient style of capitalism.
Assholes: A Theory
a bestseller by Doubleday, USA, 2012. Also by Brealey (UK/commonwealth), Rizzoli (Italy), Riemann (Germany), Psichogios (Greece), Chungrim (South Korea), Citic (China), Tanapaev (Estonia), Pegasus (Turkey), and Port - excerpt (Russia)
Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump
by Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2016. Also by Random House Verlagsgruppe (Germany), Rizzoli (Italy), Malpaso (Spain), Korea Economic & Business Daily (Korea), Rock-Paper-Scissors (China). An essay on the appeal and the danger of one conspicuous figure in contemporary public life, with lessons from the social contract tradition of Hobbes and Rousseau -- or, why America most certainly should not play Republic Roulette.
Assholes: A Theory -- a documentary by John Walker, featuring John Cleese, yours truly, and many others (available soon...) http://johnwalkerproductions.com/portfolio/assholes/
"On the Philosophical Interest and Surprising Significance of the Asshole," Harvard Review of Philosophy, Vol XXIII, 2016
"Why Nothing Exists: A Rigorous Demonstration" In Opción and in Suburbano (both in Spanish)
Blog: On Assholes.com
Charity: Help A Village With.Us
In political philosophy, I've written a book on fairness in the global economy, from a social contract perspective (Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy, OUP 2012). I've also written about John Rawls's constructive method, its neglected realist and interpretive aspects, and its application to social structures within and across major domestic institutions (such as international trade).
I'm slowly working on two academic books that urge political philosophers to take money and banking seriously. A first book is on money's nature as a public thing, the importance of public banking, and how to reconstruct the social contract tradition, liberty, equality, and the relation between them. A second book is about money and public banking in a global economy. It deepens and extends my practice-based analysis in _Fairness In Practice_, with applications to public finance, basic income and social insurance, and climate adaptation.
In moral theory I have an ongoing interest in contractualism, especially in view of risk.
Also in ethics I work on rationalism and the foundations of moral and practical judgment, with particular interest in constructivism (what it is, how it might explain objectivity, and whether it could provide a foundational theory). Having now written about surfing for a general audience (see below), I'm increasingly interested in the exercise of skill, embodiment, attunement and what they mean for practical reason and the foundations of value. I'm gathering thoughts for an eventual book on the know how of reasoning.
So that's three book projects in progress:
1. Money's Republic
2. Money in Practice: Fair Finance in a Global Economy
3. The Talent of Reason: Embodied, Social, Political
Also in the works is a book of philosophical autobiography about my charity misadventures in Sumatra. (Joke title: The Ineffective Altruist.)
Academic Publications
Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012
“Does Adam Smith Have a Theory of Money?,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 46, 2026,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052525100502
“Money as Res Publica,” Free & Equal 1, no 2, 2025
https://freeandequaljournal.org/article/id/17777/
“Fragmentation and Fairness in Global Economic Governance,” Justice in Global Economic Governance, eds. Axel Berger, Clara Brandi, Eszter Kollar, Edinburgh University Press, 2025
“The Credit-Money Hierarchy: A Republican, Egalitarian Appraisal,” Wisconsin International Law Journal, 42, no 2, 2024
"Ideational Structure," Social Philosophy and Policy 41, no 1, 2024
"Kant, Innes, and the Copernican Turn on Money," The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money, Vol. 2, ed. Joseph Tinguely, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
"The Wave Commons: Toward a (Rousseauvian) Theory of Entitlement and its Rationalization," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 51, no 2, 2024
“Money in the Social Contract,” The Philosophy of Money and Finance, eds. Joakim Sandburg and Lisa Warenski, Oxford University Press, 2024
Rethinking Money and Trade,” for the Palgrave Handbook of International Political Theory, ed. David Reidy, 2024
"Revolutions in Work: Green Growth, De-growth, A-growth,” Board Studies: The Political Ontology of Surfing and Skateboarding, eds. Kristin Lawler, David Cline, and Mike Roberts (San Diego State University Press), 2024
“Rawls, Lerner, and the Tax and Spend Booby-Trap: What Happened to Monetary Policy?,” A Theory of Justice at 50, ed. Paul Weithman, Cambridge University Press, 2023
"Money, Recognition, and the Outer Limits of Obliviousness," Synthese 202, no 2, 2023
“Money as a Currency of Justice,” The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, 22(2), 2022
“What the Trade Pioneers Missed: Money,” Journal of Moral and Political Philosophy, 9, no 1, 2022
"Preparing for Mass Unemployment: Precautionary Basic Income," ed. Matthew Liao, Oxford University Press, 2020
"Why We Must Lift the Resource Curse," Beyond Blood Oil, eds. Laurie Shrage and Naomi Zack, Rowman and Littlefield, 2018
"Sovereignty and Associative Obligations," Sovereignty and the New Executive, eds. Claire Finkelstein and Sharon Lloyd, Oxford University Press, 2018
"Constructivism, Intuitionism, Ecumenism," Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice, ed. Serena Olsaretti, 2018
"Investor Rights as Nonsense -- On Stilts," Just Financial Markets?, ed. Lisa Herzog, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017
"Fortune and Fairness in Global Economic Life," Journal of Moral Philosophy, 14, no 3, 2017
"How Cynical Can Ideal Theory Be?," Journal of International Political Theory, 12, no 2, June 2016:118-133
"Fairness in Trade," for Global Political Theory Today, eds. David Held and Pietro Maffettone, Polity Press, 2016
"The Distinctive Significance of Systemic Risk," Ratio Juris, 30, no 3 2016
"How To Construct Global Justice," San Diego Law Review, 52/1013, Fall 2015
“A Theory of Fairness in Trade,” Moral Philosophy and Politics, 1, no 2, 2014. A special issue on fairness in trade, guest edited by David Miller.
“Replies to Critics,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 44, no 2, March 2014: 286-304. A special issue on Fairness in Practice, with discussions by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius, and Kristi Olson. At: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qQSpWUKPzvqUKv5zgAqS/full
"Why Practices?" Raison Politiques, 51, Summer 2013
"Contractualism's (Not So) Slippery Slope," Legal Theory, 18, no 03, 2012: 263-292. At: http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A867FcA4
"Constructing Protagorean Objectivity," Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, eds. James Lenman and Yonatan Shemmer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012
"Political Constructivism," Blackwell Companion to Rawls, eds. David Reidy and Jon Mandle, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
"Constructivism, Moral," International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette, Blackwell
"Contractualism and Political Liberalism," Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, eds. Gerald Gaus and Fred D’Agostino, New York: Taylor and Francis, 2013
"Moral Assurance Problems in Global Context," Hobbes Today: Insights for the 21st Century, ed. Sharon Lloyd, Cambridge University Press, 2012
"The Significance of Distribution," Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon, eds. R. Jay Wallace, Rahul Kumar, and Samuel Freeman, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011
"Global Economic Fairness: Internal Principles," Global Justice and International Economic Law: Opportunities and Challenges, Cambridge University Press, 2012
"Rawlsian Justice in a Common Globe," Sustainability and Security within Liberal Societies, eds. Stephen Gough and Andrew Stables, New York: Routledge, 2008
"Legal and Other Governance In Second Person Perspective," Loyola Law Review, 40, no 2, 2006
"Equality in a Realistic Utopia," Social Theory and Practice, 32, No 4, 2006
"Constructivism about Practical Reasons," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74 no 2, 2007
"Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo," Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33 no 3, 2005
"The Objectivity of Values: Invariance without Explanation," The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44 no 4, 2006
"Distributive Justice without Sovereign Rule: The Case of Trade," Social Theory and Practice, 31 no 4, 2005
“Rights and Circularity in Scanlon’s Contractualism,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1.3, 2004: 369-377
“Power in Social Organization as the Subject of Justice,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 86, 2005: 25-49
Work in Progress
"Money and Other Public Things," for NOMOS
"Hope and Pessimism," for The Oxford Handbook to Rawls
"Meaning In Extremis," for The Journal of Philosophy of Sport
"Reconciled by Narrative Meaning"
The Moral Necessity of Climate Efficiency
“I Owe You”
"The Fairness Argument for International Money"
Academic Miscellany
"APA Comments on Leif Wenar's Blood Oil"
"Sparing the Poor: APA Comments for Darrel Moellendorf."
"Multi-Functionalism about Human Rights: APA Comments for James Nickel."
"Multi-Functionalism about Human Rights: APA Comments for Charles Beitz."
"Deflating Fact-Insensitivity"
Other Very (Very) Important Things
Money from Nothing: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying About Debt and Love the Federal Reserve, with Robert Hockett (Melville House Press, 2020). Also Babel Publishing (Taiwan).
Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry Into a Life of Meaning
by Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2017. Also by Lemniscaat (Netherlands), New Century Publishing (Taiwan), and Pegasus (Turkey). A treatise on what surfer know-how says about questions for the ages (about freedom, control, flow, happiness, being, transcendence, society, the meaning of life) and why all this means we must actually do something about climate change, namely: work less and go surfing instead, in a shorter workweek and more efficient style of capitalism.
Assholes: A Theory
a bestseller by Doubleday, USA, 2012. Also by Brealey (UK/commonwealth), Rizzoli (Italy), Riemann (Germany), Psichogios (Greece), Chungrim (South Korea), Citic (China), Tanapaev (Estonia), Pegasus (Turkey), and Port - excerpt (Russia)
Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump
by Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2016. Also by Random House Verlagsgruppe (Germany), Rizzoli (Italy), Malpaso (Spain), Korea Economic & Business Daily (Korea), Rock-Paper-Scissors (China). An essay on the appeal and the danger of one conspicuous figure in contemporary public life, with lessons from the social contract tradition of Hobbes and Rousseau -- or, why America most certainly should not play Republic Roulette.
Assholes: A Theory -- a documentary by John Walker, featuring John Cleese, yours truly, and many others (available soon...) http://johnwalkerproductions.com/portfolio/assholes/
"On the Philosophical Interest and Surprising Significance of the Asshole," Harvard Review of Philosophy, Vol XXIII, 2016
"Why Nothing Exists: A Rigorous Demonstration" In Opción and in Suburbano (both in Spanish)
Blog: On Assholes.com
Charity: Help A Village With.Us
Other Experience
Profile Photo: James Hammack
Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=4884
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=4884
Last updated
12/16/2025
12/16/2025