The Order of Public Reason

Abstract

Gerald Gaus' book The Order of Public Reason is one of the most interesting manifestations of a recent trend in moral and political philosophy. Following Rawls it blends Kantian and non-Kantian approaches supplying at least some prominent schools of moral and political philosophy with a much needed patch of overlapping consensus. In particular, Humean and Kantian considerations are merged in a theory of rights-constrained social evolution. Gaus' work stands out among others for asking the right questions and for providing good answers. He claims to outline a viable social ethic, i.e., a duty-and right-based ethic for the interaction between persons. Such an ethic tells us "what we owe to each other", in Thomas Scanlon's influential phraseology. However, the pervasiveness of reasonable disagreement concerning most issues of justice and duty even between good-willed moral evaluators is taken much more seriously by Gaus than by Scanlon and most other philosophers. This is a step in the right direction, because it underlines that a social ethic ought to be mainly concerned with secondorder considerations, considerations of what we owe to others who do not agree with our moral beliefs. Moreover, Gaus offers a further boon to the readers of this journal. He amply employs concepts of rational choice and game-theory thus documenting that they can be valuable instruments of philosophical analysis even beyond the narrower confines of neo-Hobbesian social contract theories.

Why Internal Moral Enhancement Might Be politically Better than External Moral Enhancement

“…I also agree with proceduralists that it is often difficult to identify preferred outcomes in 31 This is the classic Hobbesian view, dressed up in the language of contemporary analytic political philosophy. See Gaus [25] for an extended discussion.…”

“…If, on the other hand, I destroy your hippocampus (part of the brain network needed to form long-term memories), I can permanently impair your capacity to acquire new long-term memories. 25 Again, this difference in fungibility seems like it is ethically significant. By tampering with internal systems I can add or take away something of serious long-term significance.…”

Genetically Modified Crops, Inclusion, and Democracy

“…Communicative democracy seems to require a framework of PUBLIC REASON: factual, ethical, and epistemic assumptions shared by all members of the public and that can provide the basis for democratic deliberation (Rawls 1993, lecture VI, and part 4;Gaus 2011). Without such a framework, PUBLIC REASON DEMOCRATS argue, citizens will not be able to understand each others' views, or the questions or challenges that others raise against one's own view.…”

Moderate Idealization and Information Acquisition Responsibilities

“…Gerald Gaus (2011) has presented an attractive version of an account of moderate idealization (see also Vallier 2014). Gaus rejects the notion of full idealization on the grounds that if idealized P is too far removed from actual P in term of access to information and adeptness at reasoning, then idealized P will affirm a set of reasons that we cannot reasonably expect actual P to arrive at.…”