Bribery

About this Episode

Sometimes in law, as in other areas of life, we think we know something, but the more we think about, the more we realize we don't know it at all. Legal scholars have focused on puzzles like this before, like why blackmail should be illegal. Deborah Hellman joins us to discuss her attempt to answer a question you might not have known you had: What is wrong with bribery, and what is bribery anyway? The difficulties here shed some light on recent events.

• Deborah Hellman's faculty profile and writing
• Deborah Hellman, A Theory of Bribery
• Oral Argument 206: What Are We?