Overview

The Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) Undergraduate Summer School features a curriculum focusing on the practical problems of organizing and running human society. The summer school is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation #62965. Registration, meals and student housing is free.

• Students address questions about the nature of citizenship and the role individuals play in making critical decisions facing society.
• Emphasis is placed on an overview of how markets work and under what conditions they create wealth and prosperity, including consideration of when markets fail to function well.
• The program also explores the role of political institutions in structuring market exchange and allocating resources.

The summer school strengthens and refines students’ critical thinking skills, cultivating intellectual humility that enables them to learn from others, including those they disagree with. Topics that will be addressed include:

• The nature and justification of property rights.
• The use of market prices in coordinating economic activity.
• How trust and reciprocity facilitate personal exchange.
• The moral dimensions of cost-benefit analysis, exploitation, and repugnant transactions.