The Task of Political Philosophy
European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 9 (1):14-24 (2013)
Abstract
In Th e Order of Public Reason, Gerald Gaus defends
an innovative and sophisticated convergence
version of public reason liberalism. Th e crucial
concept of his argumentative framework is that of
“social morality”, intended as the set of rules apt to
organize how individuals can make moral demands
over each other. I claim that Gaus’s characterization
of social morality and its rules is unstable because it
rests on a rejection of the distinction between the
normative and the descriptive. I argue that such
rejection is motivated by certain practical aims
Gaus wishes his theory to achieve. His method and
his idea that morality needs to be understood both
as the dictate of impartial reasoning and as a social
and historical fact come from the need for his
theory to perform the task of settling the problem
of order. I discuss Gaus’s philosophical attitude
and, finally, distinguishing between “therapeutic”
and “evaluative” approaches, I present some points
of discussion for understanding the role and scope
of political philosophy in general.
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2015-10-25
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11 ( #54,083 of 68,971 )
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