Suchergebnisse

Preface -- Prolegomenon : Hayek's three unsettling theses -- Beyond human nature -- Beyond moral justification -- Beyond human governance -- Three enquiries on the open society -- The rise of a normative species -- A natural history of moral order -- The "starting point" -- The egalitarian revolution -- Self-interest, reciprocity and altruism -- Internalized, enforced, social rules -- The other side of morality -- Cultural evolution -- Part I : the rise and (partial) fall of inequality -- A complex moral species -- The diversity and self-organized complexity -- Liberalism and the open society -- Understanding diversity -- Autocatalytic diversity -- Diversity and complexity -- Too much complexity? -- The morality of self-organization -- The social contract -- A self-organization model -- Moral diversity In the open society -- Part II: the complexities of self-governance -- Self-governance -- Macro control -- Macro structure -- Strategic dilemmas and polycentricity -- Meso-level goal pursuit -- Sectoral policy -- Self-governance from the bottom-up : simplifying the problems of governance -- Our moral nature and governance in the open society -- Liberal democracy -- Epilogue -- Appendix A -- Appendix B.

In his provocative new book, The Tyranny of the Ideal, Gerald Gaus lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. Gaus shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. He argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice--essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years--needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, Gaus points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society--with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives--have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. Gaus defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, The Tyranny of the Ideal rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

T. H. Green claimed that 'rights are made by recognition. There is no right but thinking makes it so'. This 'rights recognition thesis' is widely rejected. I argue in this article that, so far from being an idiosyncratic doctrine of 19th-century British Idealism, the rights recognition thesis implies a compelling conception of rights, & one that, surprisingly, is more in tune with contemporary meta-ethics than are many contemporary rights theories. Green's moral theory, I argue, is a form of the widely embraced doctrine of 'moral internalism'. Such internalism, conjoined with a generally embraced analysis of rights, leads to some version of the rights recognition thesis. 17 References. Adapted from the source document.

The 20th century did not witness a significant development in liberalism & liberal theory. Instead, liberal theory today is remarkably similar to the liberal theory of 100 years ago. The same conflicting principles that existed at the close of the 19th century -- such as individualism-collectivism, constructivism-anticonstructivism, value rationalism-skepticism -- are still present at the close of the 20th century. While innovative & complex thought has been introduced, the overall understanding of liberalism has remained static. This phenomenon does not necessary connote a weakness in liberal theory. However, both classical & contemporary viewpoints must be considered if liberalism is ever to become the prevailing political ideology. K. Larsen

At the close of the 20th century, liberalism has apparently vanquished its traditional rivals. However, whatever cause for celebration liberals might derive from their political victories over conservatives & socialists, in an important respect, the 20th century has been a disappointment for liberal theory. The same antinomies or tensions that marked it at the close of the 19th century characterize it today. In this essay, I show how disputes between liberal individualists & collectivists, & between rationalists & skeptics, have persisted throughout this century. I then examine several explanations for this apparent lack of progress in liberal theorizing. Adapted from the source document.

"Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He developed a pioneering defence of the liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle diversity and disagreement, and he presses the liberal tradition towards a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. This book brings together Gaus's most seminal and creative essays in a single volume for the first time. It also covers a broad span of his career, including essays published shortly before his death, and topics including reasonable pluralism, moral rights, public reason, and the redistributive state. The volume makes accessible the work of one of the most important recent liberal theorists. Many readers will find it of value, especially those in political philosophy, political science, and economics"--