The Order of Public Reason
A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World

Gerald Gaus shows how a free society can secure a moral equilibrium endorsed by all, and how a just state respects such an equilibrium.

Gerald Gaus (Author)

9780521868563, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 December 2010

642 pages, 53 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 4.8 cm, 0.97 kg

'Gerald Gaus' The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World is a big book in its title and its length and much more importantly in its intellectual ambition, breadth, complexity, and power. Gaus draws upon an extensive knowledge of recent and not so recent moral and political philosophy, game theory, moral psychology, experimental economics, experimental philosophy, and evolutionary theory.' Criminal Law and Philosophy

In this innovative and important work, Gerald Gaus advances a revised and more realistic account of public reason liberalism, showing how, in the midst of fundamental disagreement about values and moral beliefs, we can achieve a moral and political order that treats all as free and equal moral persons. The first part of this work analyzes social morality as a system of authoritative moral rules. Drawing on an earlier generation of moral philosophers such as Kurt Baier and Peter Strawson as well as current work in the social sciences, Gaus argues that our social morality is an evolved social fact, which is the necessary foundation of a mutually beneficial social order. The second part considers how this system of social moral authority can be justified to all moral persons. Drawing on the tools of game theory, social choice theory, experimental psychology and evolutionary theory, Gaus shows how a free society can secure a moral equilibrium that is endorsed by all, and how a just state respects, and develops, such an equilibrium.

1. The fundamental problem
Part I. Social Order and Social Morality: 2. The failure of instrumentalism
3. Social morality as the sphere of rules
4. Emotion and reason in social morality
Part II. Real Public Reason: 5. The justificatory problem and the deliberative model
6. The rights of the moderns
7. Moral equilibrium and moral freedom
8. The moral and political orders
Appendix A: the plurality of morality
Appendix B: Mozick's attempt to solve the prisoner's dilemma
Appendix C: deontic utility functions
Appendix D: the Kantian coordination game
Appendix E: protection of property rights and economic freedom in states that do best at protecting civil rights.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Social & political philosophy [HPS]