Public Reason and Diversity

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.

A Note on the Essays; Introduction; Part I. Liberalism: 1. Reasonable Pluralism and the Domain of the Political (1999); 2. On Justifying the Moral Rights of the Moderns (2007); 3. Recognized Rights as Devices of Public Reason (2009); 4. The Moral Foundations of Liberal Neutrality (2009); 5. Coercion, Ownership, and the Redistributive State: Justificatory Liberalism's Classical Tilt (2010); Part II. Diverse Public Reason: 6. A Tale of Two Sets: Public Reason in Equilibrium (2011); 7. Self-Organizing Moral Systems: Beyond Social Contract Theory (2018); 8. Political Philosophy as the Study of Complex Normative Systems (2018).