The Open Society and Its Complexities

Gerald Gaus (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

304 Seiten

2021
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-064897-8 (ISBN)

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A mere two decades ago it was widely assumed that liberal democracy and the Open Society it created had decisively won their century-long struggle against authoritarianism. Although subsequent events have shocked many, F.A. Hayek would not have been surprised that we are in many ways disoriented by the society we have created. As he understood it, the Open Society was a precarious achievement in many ways at odds with our deepest moral sentiments. His path-breaking analyses argued that the Open Society runs against our evolved attraction to "tribalism" that the Open Society is too complex for moral justification; and that its self-organized complexity defies attempts at democratic governance.

In his final, wide-ranging book, Gerald Gaus critically reexamines Hayek's analyses. Drawing on diverse work in social and moral science, Gaus argues that Hayek's program was manifestly prescient and strikingly sophisticated, always identifying real and pressing problems. Yet, Gaus maintains, Hayek underestimated the resources of human morality and the Open Society to cope with the challenges he perceived. Gaus marshals formal models and empirical evidence to show that our Open Society is grounded on moral foundations of human cooperation originating in our distant evolutionary past, but has built upon them a complex and diverse society that requires us to rethink both the nature of moral justification and the meaning of democratic self-governance. In these fearful, angry and inwardly-looking times, when political philosophy has itself become a hostile exchange between ideological camps, The Open Society and Its Complexities shows how moral and ideological diversity, so far from being the enemy of a free and open society, can be its foundation.

Gerald Gaus was the James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science, at the University of Arizona. His books include Value and Justification, Justificatory Liberalism, The Order of Public Reason and, most recently, The Tyranny of the Ideal: Justice in a Diverse Society.

Preface
Prolegomenon: Hayek's Three Unsettling Theses

1. Beyond Human Nature?
2. Beyond Moral Justification?
3. Beyond Human Governance?
4. Three Enquiries on The Open Society

Part I: The Rise of a Normative Species
5. A Natural History of Moral Order
6. The "Starting Point"
7. The Egalitarian Revolution
8. Self-Interest, Reciprocity and Altruism
9. Internalized, Enforced, Social Rules
10. The Other Side of Morality
11. Cultural Evolution
12. The Rise and (Partial) Fall of Inequality
13. A Complex Moral Species

Part II: The Diversity and Self-Organized Complexity
14. Liberalism and the Open Society
15. Understanding Diversity
16. Autocatalytic Diversity
17. Diversity and Complexity
18. The Morality of Self-Organization
19. The Social Contract
20. A Self-Organization Model
21. Moral Diversity in The Open Society

Part III: The Complexities of Self-Governance
22. Self-Governance
23. Macro Control
24. Macro Structure
25. Strategic Dilemmas and Polycentricity
26. Meso-Level Goal Pursuit
27. Sectoral Policy
28. Self-Governance from The Bottom-Up: Simplifying The Problems Of Governance
29. Our Moral Nature and Governance in the Open Society
30. Liberal Democracy

Epilogue
Appendix A
Appendix B
Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	11.08.2021
Reihe/Serie	Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	163 x 240 mm
Gewicht	517 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
ISBN-10	0-19-064897-X / 019064897X
ISBN-13	978-0-19-064897-8 / 9780190648978
Zustand	Neuware