Gerald Gaus and the Open Society

This is a guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins, Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. Ed is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. He also has numerous other publications, including several published on this site. (Please see the list after the end of this essay.) 

 

Gerald Gaus’s The Open Society and Its Complexities (2021) is a response to three theses advanced by Friedrich A. Hayek regarding the Open Society. Hayek’s first thesis is that human beings are not made for a free society. Human evolved psychology makes us xenophobic, parochial, and egalitarian in ways that conflict with the diversity and impartiality of an Open Society. The second thesis is that the operation of institutions in the Open Society is so unclear that we cannot rationally evaluate, critique, or justify that type of society. The third thesis is that the Open Society cannot be governed. Because it is a complex, multidimensional, and dynamic system with many linear, nonlinear, and inextricably related intersections and feedback connections, it is an extremely hard or impossible to predict the effects we will have on society by intervening in it. These theses are pessimistic about the Open Society. Gaus’s achievement is to critically re-examine these theses and to argue that Hayek’s program underestimated the potential resources of human morality and the Open Society to deal with the challenges he perceived.

Gaus begins the book with three questions inspired by Hayek: Are human beings psychologically and morally suited to the Open Society?  Is the Open Society too complex to be morally justified? Is the Open Society too complex to be governed? The structure of the book follows those questions through three major parts: the evolution of a normative species; diversity and self-organized complexity; and the complexities of self-governance. Gaus’s project is therefore both philosophical and interdisciplinary. He draws upon moral philosophy, evolutionary theory, economics, political science, social psychology, complexity theory, and the study of institutions.

 

Although, in his book, Gaus provides an explanation of the emergence and maintenance of cooperative social arrangements, an important philosophical question remains: How should we evaluate the moral principles that have evolved, and what justifies the rights and institutions that make an open society desirable? An explanation of how moral dispositions and cooperative practices emerged does not, by itself, establish that those dispositions or practices are morally justified.

 

Toward the end of this essay, I explain how Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl’s theory of individualistic perfectionism, particularly their account of individual rights as metanormative principles, offers a complementary and underpinning philosophical foundation.  They argue that a neo-Aristotelian understanding of human flourishing supports a political order that protects individual liberty without requiring everyone to pursue the same conception of the good life.

The Evolution of Human Moral Behavior

 

The first part of the book explores the evolution of human moral behavior. Gaus rejects a simple picture of human beings as either selfish maximizers or altruistic cooperators. Instead, human beings are highly social creatures possessing capacities for reciprocity, cooperation, punishment, norm enforcement, moral learning, and cultural adaptation. This evolutionary perspective matters because the Open Society is not merely a political invention imposed upon human beings. It emerges from capacities that human beings have developed over long periods of social interaction. The implication is significant: liberal society must be understood as a dynamic social order whose functioning depends upon actual human capacities for cooperation and norm-following.

 

Gaus cites formal models and empirical evidence to show that the Open Society is grounded on the moral foundations of human cooperation originating in our distant evolutionary past, but has built upon them a complex and diverse society that requires rethinking both the nature of moral justification and the meaning of democratic self-governance. Instead of providing a traditional argument for the Open Society, Gaus offers an evolutionary account showing that the Open Society has advantages over alternative arrangements that will cause it to prevail. The features of the Open Society that foster cultural evolution have to do with diversity and complexity.

Diversity and Complexity

 

The second major theme is diversity. Gaus’s Open Society is much more diverse than the relatively homogeneous liberal societies often imagined by classical liberal theory. Individuals possess different values, preferences, identities, projects, moral perspectives, and notions of the good.

 

This second part takes up Hayek’s second thesis—that the Open Society is too complex for the practice of moral justification. Gaus endorses Hayek’s criticism of social contract theory, proposing instead a self-organization model of moral justification. According to this model, moral justification is not a matter of deriving principles from a hypothetical contract or a single collective choice, but rather emerges from socially interdependent decisions. Publicly justified rules aid self-governance through a process of continuous contestation and mutual adjustment.

 

Diversity can generate additional diversity. Gaus describes this as autocatalytic diversity. Interactions among different individuals and groups can create new choices, institutions, occupations, lifestyles, associations, and forms of cooperation. Diversity therefore becomes a source of further complexity. 

 

Freedom does not simply permit people to choose among an existing menu of alternatives. Their interactions can generate new alternatives. The social order is consequently not merely a system in equilibrium. It is evolutionary and generative. Gaus’s central concept is self-organization. A complex social order does not require a central designer. Individuals respond to one another, learn, imitate, compete, cooperate, and adjust. Order emerges from these interactions.

 

This is closely related to the Hayekian concept of spontaneous order, but Gaus develops the idea in a more systematic and contemporary framework. The Open Society is a complex adaptive system in which individual actions can generate patterns that no individual actor planned.

 

Public Justification and Polycentric Governance

 

Importantly, Gaus does not conclude that because an order is spontaneous it is beyond evaluation or governance. The third part of his book explores how self-governance can operate within complex systems. 

 

Gaus’s account of public justification is also important. In a diverse society, people will not share a comprehensive conception of the good. Therefore, political legitimacy cannot depend upon everyone sharing the same moral or religious worldview. Instead, social rules must be justifiable to people with diverse normative perspectives. Gaus’s approach attempts to explain how shared rules can emerge without requiring a centralized agreement on ultimate values. His self-organization model suggests that free and equal individuals can sometimes converge on common rules even when they value those rules for different reasons. 

 

This is an important development within liberal public reason theory because it shifts attention away from designing an ideal social contract and toward understanding how actual processes of argument, adaptation, coordination, and institutional evolution can generate publicly acceptable norms. Gaus’s libertarian neutralism embraces perspectival diversity and interspectival justice which involves rational bargains and compromises.

 

 

System-wide order self-organizes from the bottom up rather than being commanded from above.

Consequently, ideal political theories (such as Rawlsian egalitarianism or strict libertarian utopianism) fail because they assume a static, predictable social model. They demand a level of institutional knowledge that no central authority or philosopher can possess. Crucially, Gaus argues that moral diversity is not a problem to be eliminated, but an engine of social discovery and resilience. Gaus describes diversity in the Open Society as autocatalytic. Free societies grant individuals room to experiment with diverse ways of living and thinking. This diversity drives innovation, specialization, and economic complexity. Increased complexity expands the range of possible social roles and moral perspectives, which in turn generates even greater diversity.

Instead of searching for a single, ideal standard of justice, Gaus argues that the Open Society relies on flexible, self-organizing moral rules that allow diverse agents to live together productively despite moral disagreements. Polycentric governance and decentralized rule-evolution allow society to adapt dynamically to unforeseen challenges.

 

His discussion draws upon the insights associated with Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School. Polycentric institutions can emerge from self-organized networks and can provide mechanisms for solving collective action problems without requiring comprehensive central planning. Thus, Gaus’s liberalism is not simply about limiting government. It is about understanding the architecture of a complex social order in which governance itself can be decentralized.

According to Gaus, the Open Society is characterized by three key features: autocatalytic diversity, unbounded technological innovation, and individual autonomy. These features make the Open Society a complex adaptive system that is difficult to control from the top or center but is resilient and adaptive from the bottom up. Gaus argues that the freedoms of our highly networked society are difficult to extinguish and that its ideals can be vindicated via grassroots exploration and consent. This is a cautiously optimistic argument about the long-term prospects for the Open Society, grounded in an evolutionary analysis of morality as a complex adaptive system.

 

Gaus’s approach is distinctively interdisciplinary, drawing on evolutionary analysis, primatology, anthropology, moral psychology, analyses of complex systems, experimental economics, and studies of norms. This methodological breadth reflects his pivotal role in the re-founding of “moral science” as an explicit form of social inquiry and his championing of philosophy, politics, and economics as a way of injecting empirical and strategic insights into traditional philosophical debates. His detached attitude toward morality, assessing it as an admirable but pragmatic mechanism, contrasts with the more prescriptive tone of much contemporary political philosophy.

Underpinning and Strengthening Gausian Complexity with neo-Aristotelian Perfectionism 

While Gaus’s analysis of social complexity is well done, an exclusively evolutionary defense of liberalism faces weaknesses. Evolutionary processes can sometimes select for illiberal, tribal, or authoritarian social structures if those structures offer short-term survival advantages. If moral rules are merely evolved social conventions, it becomes difficult to explain why an open society is good, rather than merely complex and adaptive.

 

 Evolutionary persistence does not establish moral validity. A disposition may have contributed to the survival or reproductive success of a group without being ethically defensible. Favoritism toward one’s own group, for example, may have supported cooperation among insiders while encouraging hostility toward outsiders. Likewise, an institution may endure because it benefits powerful participants rather than because it respects the rights and flourishing of everyone subject to it.

 

 Spontaneous order should not be treated as automatically just. Self-organizing processes can generate beneficial arrangements, but they can also operate within institutions that permit coercion, exploitation, or rights violations. The fact that a social pattern emerges spontaneously does not establish that it is morally legitimate.

Gaus’s dependence on formal empirical models, game theory, empirical evidence, evolutionary adaptation, and the social sciences displays his tendency to disregard or underrate traditional normative political philosophy. He appears to reject the traditional goal of political philosophy which is to determine or identify the best political order. An evolutionary theorist, like Gaus, should at some point judge what has evolved. 

Rasmussen and Den Uyl supply the necessary normative foundation. They remind us that social systems ultimately exist for the sake of real human beings striving to live meaningful, perfectible lives. Grounding the defense of the free society in human self-direction ensures that classical liberalism remains anchored in a firm defense of individual rights, preventing it from being reduced to pure pragmatic functionalism.

 Rasmussen and Den Uyl provide the missing normative anchor through their distinction between normative and metanormative principles. Normative principles guide individual moral conduct—they tell us how we ought to live. Metanormative principles, by contrast, regulate the conditions under which normative conduct could take place. Individual rights are metanormative principles: they establish the political and legal framework within which each person can pursue his or her own conception of the good life without being coerced by others. The linchpin of their argument is self-direction. Human flourishing is an objective, individualized, agent-relative achievement that each person must attain through his or her own practical reasoning and choice. Self-direction is both a necessary condition for, and an operating condition of, the pursuit and achievement of human flourishing. Because flourishing requires self-direction, and self-direction is thwarted by coercion, individuals possess natural rights to the conditions of their flourishing—rights that are grounded not in convention or utility but in the very nature of human beings as rational agents.

The complementarity between these approaches is structural. Gaus’s evolutionary-epistemic framework explains how the Open Society emerges, functions, and remains fragile. Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s neo-Aristotelian perfectionism explains why it is worth defending and what its moral limits are. Spontaneous orders—markets, evolved legal rules, decentralized coordination—create conditions of prosperity and peace that no central planner could replicate. The spontaneous order of the market does not guarantee that anyone will flourish. It merely creates the space within which flourishing is possible. This is exactly what metanormative rights do. They do not guarantee success or even provide the conditions that make such action possible. The spontaneous order of general rules and the teleological structure of human action are not opposed but mutually supporting. The evolved rules of a free society create the conditions under which individual practical wisdom can operate effectively, while the metanormative framework of rights protects the sphere within which that wisdom is exercised.

Yet, the two approaches also differ in important respects. Gaus’s framework is fundamentally procedural and social. Moral justification emerges from the self-organization of diverse agents converging on shared rules. Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s framework is teleological and individualistic. Rights are grounded in the nature of human flourishing as an objective good that each person must achieve in his or her own way. Gaus is more optimistic than Hayek about the capacity of evolved moral psychology to sustain the Open Society. Rasmussen and Den Uyl are more confident that a robust ethical foundation can be articulated without imposing a particular conception of the good on others. Gaus’s account risks leaving the Open Society normatively underdetermined and vulnerable to the objection that if some other arrangement produced more prosperity or coordination, it would be justified. Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s account supplies a non-consequentialist ground: the right to self-direction is justified because self-direction is a necessary condition for human flourishing, and human flourishing is the ultimate standard of value.

 Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s metanormative framework provides the normative foundation that Gaus’s evolutionary account presupposes but cannot itself generate. Gaus shows that the Open Society is grounded on evolved moral foundations. Rasmussen and Den Uyl show why those foundations are not merely contingent facts but expressions of a deeper teleological structure. The Open Society is an emergent order that creates the conditions for human flourishing, and human flourishing is the ultimate end that justifies and limits political power. Liberty and flourishing are not opposed but interdependent. Liberty is the political condition for flourishing, and flourishing is the moral purpose of liberty.

In an age of polarization and skepticism about liberal institutions, this synthesis offers a defense of freedom that is both empirically grounded and ethically robust. Gaus’s evolutionary-epistemic framework explains the fragility and complexity of the Open Society; Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s neo-Aristotelian perfectionism explains why it deserves our understanding and our defense. Together, they articulate a vision of a free society that emerges spontaneously yet serves the ultimate end of human flourishing.

 

Conclusion

 

The relationship between Gerald Gaus’s The Open Society and Its Complexities and Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Norms of Liberty and The Perfectionist Turn illustrates the potential value of integrating evolutionary social science with neo-Aristotelian political philosophy. Gaus demonstrates how evolved moral capacities, cultural development, and self-organized complexity can help sustain an open society characterized by cooperation and diversity. Rasmussen and Den Uyl provide a complementary and underpinning ethical foundation by explaining why individual rights should protect the conditions necessary for self-directed human flourishing.

 

The resulting synthesis recognizes that an open society requires both an understanding of how cooperative social order develops and a defensible account of the principles that should govern it. Evolutionary success alone cannot determine moral legitimacy, while abstract principles alone cannot explain the full complexity of social life.

 

Individualistic perfectionism supplies a philosophical standard for evaluating the moral and political institutions that evolutionary processes produce. Metanormative rights protect the freedom necessary for individuals to pursue diverse forms of flourishing, while the insights of spontaneous-order theory help explain how those individuals can cooperate peacefully without a centrally imposed plan.

References

Bates, Winton. 2025. “How Can the Study of Human Nature Help Us Reach Normative Conclusions in Political Philosophy”. Freedom and Flourishing  (Oct. 31).

 Den Uyl, Douglas J., and Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2016. The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

 Gaus, Gerald. 2011. The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Gaus, Gerald. 2016. The Tyranny of the Ideal: Justice in a Diverse Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gaus, Gerald. 2021. The Open Society and Its Complexities. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hayek, Friedrich A., 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 Hayek, Friedrich A. 1973. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 Popper, Karl R. 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

 Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Den Uyl, Douglas J. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Other essays by Ed Younkins on this site:

Younkins, Edward W. “What Contribution did David L. Norton Make to our Understanding of Ethical Individualism?” Freedom and Flourishing. January 18, 2025.

—————————-“How can dialectics help us to defend liberty?” Freedom and Flourishing. July 8, 2025.

—————————“How can Austrian Economics be reconciled with the Neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. October 2, 2025.

—————————– “Can Polarized Moral Politics be Bridged by a Neo-Aristotelian Philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. December 13, 2025.

—————————– “Does Humanomics Need a Moral Anchor?” Freedom and Flourishing. January 22, 2026.

—————————– “Is Character Education Compatible With Individualistic Perfectionism?” Freedom and Flourishing. February 27, 2026.

 —————————– “Are Spontaneous Order and neo-Aristotelian Arguments for a Free Society Compatible?” Freedom and Flourishing. March 19, 2026.

—————————– “Are Spinoza’s Philosophy and Neo-Aristotelian Philosophies of Freedom and Flourishing Compatible?” Freedom and Flourishing. June 4, 2026. 

—————————– “The Architecture of Freedom: Randy Barnett’s Natural Law Case for a Free Society” Freedom and Flourishing. June 26, 2026.

—————————– “Robust Political Economy and Neo-Aristotelianism: Complementary Visions of Freedom and Flourishing” Freedom and Flourishing. July 10, 2026.

—————————— “Is Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Consistent with Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics?” Freedom and Flourishing. July 26, 2026.

——————————-“Henry B. Veatch’s Neo-Aristotelian Defense of Reality, Reason, and Rights” Freedom and Flourishing. August 30, 2026.

——————————– “Behavioral Economics and Human Flourishing: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective” Freedom and Flourishing. October 4, 2026. 

Source: https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/11/gerald-gaus-and-open-society.html