Jerry Gaus
JAMES E. ROGERS PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
selected published papers
"The Idea and Ideal of Capitalism." In The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics, edited by George G. Brenkert and Tom L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 73-99.
"The Place of Religious Belief in Public Reason Liberalism." In Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict, edited by Maria Dimovia-Cookson and P.M.R. Stirk. London: Routledge, 2009: 19-37.
"Is the Public Incompetent? Compared to Whom? About What?," Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, vol. 20 (2009): 291-311.
(with Kevin Vallier) "The Roles of Religious Conviction in a Publicly Justified Polity: The Implications of Convergence, Asymmetry and Political Institutions." Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol. 35 (January 2009): pp. 51-76.
"Controversial Values and State Neutrality in On Liberty. In Mill's On Liberty: A Critical Guide, edited by C.L. Ten. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008: 83-104.
"The (Severe) Limits of Deliberative Democracy as the Basis for Political Choice." Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 117 (2008): 26-53.
"Reasonable Utility Functions and Playing the Cooperative Way." Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, vol. 11 (June 2008): 215-234
"Social Complexity and Evolved Moral Principles.: In Liberalism, Conservatism, And Hayek's Idea Of Spontaneous Order, Peter McNamara, ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007: 149-76"The Evolution of Society and Mind: Hayek's System of Ideas." In Ed Feser, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hayek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006: 232-258.
"On Justifying the Liberties of the Moderns: A Case of Old Wine in New Bottles." Social Philosophy & Policy, vol. 25 (1), 2007.
"The Rights Recognition Thesis: Defending and Extending Green" in Maria Dimovia-Cookson and Wlliam Mander, eds., T.H. Green: Metaphysics, Ethics and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
"The Place of Autonomy in Liberalism." In Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism, John Christman and Joel Anderson, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005: 272-306.
"The Diversity of Comprehensive Liberalisms." In Handbook of Political Theory, Gaus and Kukathas, eds., op. cit., pp. 100-114.
"Liberal Neutrality: A Radical and Compelling Principle" In Perfectionism and Neutrality, George Klosko and Steven Wall, eds. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003: 137-165.
"Taking the Bad with the Good: Misplaced Worries about Legal Retribution." In Enrique Villanveua, ed., Legal and Political Philosophy. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002: 339-362.
"What is Deontology? Part One: Orthodox Views." Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 35 (2001): 27-42.
"What is Deontology? Part Two: Reasons for Action." Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 35 (2001): 179-193.
I received my BA from SUNY/Buffalo and my MA and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. In the early '80s I was a Research Fellow in Philosophy Department in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, where I worked closely with Stanley Benn. (Stanley's great book, A Theory of Freedom, is one of the most underappreciated books in recent political philosophy — there is more good philosophy in one of Stanley's chapters than most books in recent political philosophy.) From 1997-2002, together with Fred D'Agostino and Peter Forrest, I was co-editor of The Australasian Journal of Philosophy (Oxford UP). I was a founding co-editor of Politics, Philosophy & Economics (Sage). My main area of work is on public reason. Currently I am writing a book on The Order of Public Reason to be published by Cambridge. I argue in this book that respect for all as free and equal moral persons requires that our social morality be publicly justified -- however, the project of identifying such a morality is, I believe, clearly indeterminate. Drawing on ideas in game theory and social evolution, I try to show how respect for the moral freedom of all is still possible in the face of this indeterminacy. Other recent work concerns economic approaches to philosophy and politics, the place of religious belief in public reason liberalism, the problem social complexity poses for public policy, liberal neutrality, and a theory of rights as devices to cope with evaluative incommensurability. I also have (what some consider to be an idiosyncratic) interest in the British Hegelians, especially T.H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet. Julian Lamont and I are in the early stages of writing a book on Economic Justice for Blackwell's. Julian, Christi Favor and I are also editing a book for Stanford University Press, New Essays on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
email: ggaus@email.arizona.edu
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the ways in which economic analysis has been applied to issues in social and political philosophy. It is neither a course in economics nor in the philosophy of economics, but concerns the ways in which tools from economics have been applied to the problems of social and political theory.
The course is divided into four parts:
(1) Rationality and utility. We shall consider the relations between instrumental rationality, Homo Economicus and formal utility theory, including different conceptions of the notion of a preference and utility functions. These ideas are the foundations of the course. We will also examine whether moral agents can be modeled in terms of utility theory.
(2) Efficiency. This part considers the ideas of marginal utility, Pareto comparisons, and internalities-externalities, and transaction costs and public goods. We consider here whether the Pareto criterion is a moral standard, and the idea that governments are needed to supply public goods.
(3) Games. We consider strategic rationality in the forms of games of chicken, the prisoner's dilemma and cooperative games. We will examine games in both their strategic and extensive forms. Applications of game theory to public goods problems (including those that concern moral and social order) will be a main focus. Nash equilibria and subgame perfection are among the concepts discussed. We examine some iterated and evolutionary game theory.
(4) Social Choice and Democracy. Democracy can be understood as a way a society makes a collective choice. We examine in this part both the formal aspects of social choice and their applications to democracy. We look at the ideas of an Arrovian social welfare function and a collective choice rule. May's theorem and Arrow's theorem are the focus, though we shall consider more general questions concerning strategic voting and path dependency of political decisions. Arguments as to whether Arrow's theorem is relevant to understanding real-world democracy will be another important focus. Other problems considered here will be whether majoritarian decisions rules are efficient, whether super-majority rules are superior, and whether voting in mass elections can ever be a rational act.
Texts:
If you are enrolled, you can access course materials by clicking
here
Phil 561: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
This is a gradute seminar version of the above course, which meets Wednesday from 6:00-8:30. The material is much more advanced; only graduate students may enroll.
selected forthcoming papers
"Recognized Rights as Devices of PublicReason." Forthcoming, Philosophical Perspectives
"The Demands of Impartiality and the Evolution of Morality." In Partiality and Impartiality, edited by Brian Feltham and John Cottingham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
"On two Critics of Justificatory Liberalism: A Response to Wall and Lister." Politics, Philosophy & Economics, forthcoming.
"The Moral Foundations of Liberal Neutrality." In Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy, Thomas Christiano and John Christman, eds., Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming.
work in progress
"Rights as Devices of Public Reason"
"The Demands of Impartiality and the Evolution of Morality"
Coercion, Ownership, and the Redistributive State:Justificatory Liberalism's Classical Tilt"
books
On Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008, xii + 220pp.
Contemporary Theories of Liberalism: Public Reason as a Post-Enlightenment Project. London: Sage Publications, 2003, ix+240pp.
Political Concepts and Political Theories. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000, xiv + 288pp.
Social Philosophy. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. xiv + 245pp.
Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory (Oxford Political Theory). New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, xiv + 374pp.
Value and Justification: The Foundations of Liberal Theory (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, xviii + 540 pp.
The Modern Liberal Theory of Man. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983, vii + 312 pp.
I am currently writing a book entitled The Order of Public Reason (to be published by Cambridge University Press) and, with Julian Lamont, a book on Economic Justice (to be published by Blackwell's).
Co-edited Books
(with Christi Favor and Julian Lamont), New Essays on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: Integration and Common Research Projects. Stanford: Staanford University Press, forthcoming.
(with Chandran Kukathas) Handbook of Political Theory. London: Sage Publications, 2004, xvi + 448 pp.
(with William Sweet) The Philosophical Theory of the State and Related Essays by Bernard Bosanquet (Classic Studies in the History of Ideas). Indianapolis: St. Augustine Press, 2001, 426 + xxv pp.
(with Fred D’Agostino) Public Reason (International Research Library of Philosophy). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998, xxiii + 470 pp.
(with S.I. Benn) Public and Private in Social Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983, vii + 412 pp.
workshop, November 16 & 17, 2007
On November 16 and 17 here in Tucson, there will be a workshop on public reason. Click
Particpants will include:
Alyssa Bernstein, Ohio University
Chris Bertram, University of Bristol
Bruce Brower, Tulane University
Tom Christiano, University of Arizona
Richard Dagger, Arizona State University
Peter de Marneffe, Arizona State University
Christopher Eberle, Naval Academy
Andrew Lister, Queens University
S.A. Lloyd, University of Southern California
James Nickel, Arizona State University
Jonathan Quong, University of Manchester
Shaun Young, Carleton University
Steven Wall, Bowling Green State University
Please register if you plan to attend, by writing me at ggaus@email.arizona.edu. The Workshop is open to everyone who (1) reads the papers ahead of time and (2) attends all the sessions. There will be dinners on Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th.
Thanks to the Arizona Philosophy Department for their financial assistance.