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.

 

Gaus’s discussion of polycentricity extends the analysis from moral norms to institutions. Rather than imagining governance as a single hierarchical state directing society from above, Gaus emphasizes multiple centers of decision-making. Institutions can experiment, learn, compete, cooperate, and adapt.

 

Gaus’s primary target is what he terms the "synoptic delusion"—the belief held by political philosophers and central planners that society can be understood as a simple causal mechanism that can be designed, predicted, and optimized from the top down. Gaus demonstrates that an Open Society is a Complex Adaptive System. In complex systems outcomes emerge from linear and non-linear interactions among heterogeneous, rule-following agents.  Cause and effect are decoupled and even small policy interventions often produce unforeseen, unintended consequences.

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. 

Henry B. Veatch’s Neo-Aristotelian Defense of Reality, Reason, and Rights

 

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.) 

In an age of philosophical fragmentation, the voice of Henry B. Veatch stands as an indispensable corrective. Recognized as one of the leading neo-Aristotelian thinkers of the twentieth century, Veatch devoted his long and distinguished career to defending a vision of philosophy rooted in realism, teleology, and the conviction that ethics and politics must be grounded in the nature of things. His many articles and books represent a sustained and powerful argument against the dominant trends of modern and postmodern thought.

Veatch revised and reinterpreted Aristotle’s ethical framework at a time when utilitarianism, subjectivism, skepticism, existentialism, emotivism, and positivism dominated philosophical discourse. During that period, contemporary ethics had fragmented into relativism, nihilism, and reductionist theories that failed to account for the richness of moral experience. 

He disagreed with prevailing trends in modern philosophy such as the anti-foundationalism of postmodern thought, the persistence of Kantian and neo-Kantian ethical theory, nominalism, and the dominance of linguistic analysis. Veatch argues that contemporary moral philosophy often attempts to evade individual responsibility, either by reducing morality to subjective preferences or by attaching morality to social institutions via collectivist ethical theories.

This essay will explore Veatch's contributions to metaphysics, his account of human nature and teleology, his conception of practical wisdom (phronesis), his critique of Kantianism and postmodernism, and his defense of natural law and human rights. It will then examine his influence on contemporary philosophers Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, comparing and contrasting their views with Veatch's own.

Metaphysics and the Defense of Realism

At the heart of Veatch's philosophical project lies a commitment to metaphysical realism. This commitment is nowhere more evident than in Intentional Logic (1952), where Veatch argues that "logic necessarily presupposes a metaphysics". He insists that logic cannot be understood as a mere formal calculus or as a set of rules for manipulating symbols. Rather, logic must be grounded in the nature of things themselves—in the way the world actually is.

Veatch's realism is thoroughly Aristotelian. He maintains that the world consists of substances with natures or essences, and that our concepts and judgments are true insofar as they correspond to these real structures. The cognitive relation between knower and known is, in his view, a relation of identity—not in the sense that the knower becomes the object known, but in the sense that the mind grasps the essence of the thing. Predication, similarly, involves the relation of identity between the abstracted essence and the individuals that instantiate it.

This metaphysical realism has profound implications for every other area of philosophy. If there are real natures and essences, then there are real facts about what things are and what they are for. And if there are real facts about what things are for, then there are real standards of goodness and badness, right and wrong. Veatch's metaphysics thus provides the foundation for his entire ethical and political philosophy.

Veatch's realism also leads him to reject the nominalism that pervades much modern philosophy. He argues that the denial of universals and essences leads inevitably to skepticism and relativism. If there are no real natures, then there is no basis for making objective claims about what anything is or ought to be. The only alternative, he insists, is to recover the Aristotelian understanding of the world as a realm of intelligible structures that we can come to know through reason.

Human Nature and Teleology 

Veatch's account of human nature is inseparable from his teleological view of the world. For Aristotle, as for Veatch, every natural thing has a telos. Human beings are no exception. We are rational animals, and our distinctive end is to live in accordance with reason.

In Rational Man (1962), Veatch takes aim at the modern denial of teleology. Against this view, he argues that ethical knowledge is possible and that it is "grounded in human nature". Human beings have a nature, and that nature determines what is good for them.

Veatch's teleology is not, however, a simplistic or reductive one. He does not believe that human well-being is something simple or that the moral life consists merely in following rules or recipes. Rather, he presents a "pluralistic understanding of human well-being without lapsing into moral relativism". There are many goods that contribute to human flourishing, and they must be integrated and balanced in the course of a well-lived life.

 This pluralistic teleology is crucial for understanding Veatch's ethics. Unlike utilitarians, who reduce the good to pleasure or happiness, Veatch recognizes a diversity of goods—knowledge, friendship, virtue, excellence in various activities, and so on. Unlike Kantians, who separate the right from the good and insist on duty for duty's sake, he insists that moral obligations are ultimately grounded in what is good for human beings. The good is prior to the right--we have duties because there are things that are truly good for us and for others. 

Veatch explains that ethics must be grounded in metaphysics. He provides an objective foundation for morality rooted in human nature and the rational pursuit of human flourishing. His Aristotelian realism holds that all beings have a natural end (or telos) and that each individual is responsible for his own moral development. This responsibility is the foundational existential fact from which ethics begins. He defends a teleological account of morality in which good is determined by the fulfillment of one’s human nature. Unlike Ayn Rand, for Veatch, an individual’s obligation to act to fulfill his human nature does not depend upon a pre-moral “choice to live”.

Veatch challenges the naturalistic fallacy by addressing the fact-value distinction through which many philosophers contend that moral choices are merely expressions of subjective preferences rather than statements of fact. Calling the fact-value dichotomy untenable, he explains that human nature contains normative implications and that moral claims cannot be divorced from human nature. 

Practical Wisdom (Phronesis) and the Moral Life

 Rationality is the defining characteristic of humanity guiding individuals toward a flourishing life. A person’s nature as a rational being shapes his ethical obligations. Veatch recognizes that moral decision making is contextual and requires the exercise of reason in concrete situations.

 Central to Veatch’s ethics is phronesis (practical wisdom) which discerns the contextual, particular, and contingent circumstances to determine what is morally required at the time of action. Practical wisdom is concerned with applying general moral principles to particular circumstances. Viewing rationality as the sole arbiter of action, his ethics includes the ability to reason and act including the ability to discern and correct errors.

Veatch's conception of the moral life is centrally organized around the Aristotelian virtue of practical wisdom. For Veatch, the moral life is not merely one of following rules or recipes, nor is human well-being something simple. Rather, the moral life, which Veatch calls "rational or intelligent living," is "the life of practical wisdom where individual judgment of the particular and the contingent is paramount". 

This emphasis on practical wisdom reflects Veatch's conviction that ethics cannot be reduced to a set of general principles or algorithms. The situations we face in life are always particular and contingent, and they require the exercise of judgment—the ability to see what is called for in this situation, with these people, under these circumstances. Practical wisdom is the virtue that enables us to make these judgments well.

At the same time, practical wisdom is not a form of intuition or feeling. It is a form of reason—practical reason. The practically wise person does not feel his way through moral situations; he sees them clearly, understands what is at stake, and discerns what the relevant goods and virtues require. Practical wisdom is thus both intellectual and moral. It  involves knowledge of the good and the ability to apply that knowledge in concrete situations. 

Veatch's account of practical wisdom also has important implications for his view of moral education and character formation. Virtues are not innate. They must be acquired through practice and habituation. The moral life requires learning, discipline, and experience. But it is not merely an art, for it deals with what is truly good and bad for human beings, not merely with what is useful or pleasant.

Critique of Kantianism and neo-Kantianism 

Veatch was a critic of Kantian and neo-Kantian philosophy. In For an Ontology of Morals (1971) he critiques contemporary trends in ethical theory, "including the deontological tradition dating back to Kant". His fundamental objection to Kantianism is that it severs morality from any grounding in human nature and human goods.

Kantian ethics, in Veatch's view, makes the fundamental mistake of supposing "that moral imperatives can be derived independently of consideration of human ends". Kantian moral theories "generally argue that moral duties are duties to perform certain actions 'without' reference to any end to be achieved".

Veatch also objects to the Kantian separation of the phenomenal and noumenal realms, which he sees as a form of idealism that undermines realism. Kant's "transcendental turn" represents a fateful departure from the Aristotelian understanding of knowledge as the grasp of an independently existing reality. By restricting knowledge to the phenomenal realm and relegating things-in-themselves to the noumenal, Kant makes it impossible to know the real natures of things—including human nature. Without knowledge of human nature, there can be no objective ethics.

Veatch's critique extends to neo-Kantianism as well. He argues that "moral and ethical distinctions cannot be rightly or adequately understood if they are regarded simply as matters of linguistic use but are grounded in the very being and nature of things". The linguistic turn in philosophy is, in Veatch's view, merely another form of the Kantian error. It treats morality as a matter of language or convention rather than as a matter of objective truth about human flourishing.

Postmodernism and the Linguistic Turn 

Veatch was equally critical of postmodernism, which he saw as the culmination of the modern trajectory away from realism and toward various forms of skepticism, relativism, and constructivism. He opposed the "linguistic turn" in philosophy, which treats language as the primary or exclusive subject of philosophical inquiry.

Veatch's objections to postmodernism are rooted in his realism. If there are no real natures or essences—if everything is a social construction or a product of language—then there is no basis for objective knowledge or moral truth. Postmodernism leads inevitably to a kind of nihilism in which all claims are equally valid (or equally invalid) and there is no way to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong. Against this, Veatch insists that "our rules of language are determined by real necessities in the world". Language is not a self-contained system that creates reality. It is a tool for referring to and describing a reality that exists independently of us.

Veatch's opposition to postmodernism is thus not merely a matter of intellectual preference. It is a matter of philosophical necessity. If we abandon realism, we abandon the possibility of philosophy itself as a quest for truth. If we abandon the possibility of truth, we abandon the possibility of any meaningful ethics or politics.

Human Rights and Natural Law

Veatch's most sustained treatment of political philosophy appears in Human Rights: Fact or Fancy? (1985). In this work, Veatch "finds the basis for human rights in natural law". He "builds his argument step by step, carefully laying the foundation for his central assertion that our basic rights are discoverable directly in the facts of nature".

His theory of natural rights is grounded in an account of human nature that recognizes the connection between moral duty and human flourishing. He sees these rights as derived from duties that a person owes to himself to flourish as an individual human being. Each of us is bound by nature to fulfill that obligation. A person’s duty to self-perfection creates the right not to have that pursuit interfered with. It follows that, if one expects to hold these rights, then he must accord them to all other persons, as well. These natural rights are conditioned by the reciprocal duties of other rational being. Because the rights are grounded in reality, their validity does not depend upon social agreement or legal codification. 

Veatch's natural law theory is thoroughly Aristotelian. Just as every natural thing has a telos that determines what is good for it, so too human beings have a nature and a telos that determine what is good for them and what they have a right to. Rights are not arbitrary conventions or creations of the state; they are grounded in the very being and nature of human persons.

Veatch insists that "law must be based on ethics" and that "ethics in turn must be grounded in fact and therefore must have a basis in nature". This is a direct challenge to the positivist view that law is merely a matter of social convention or sovereign command. It is also a challenge to the view that rights are merely creations of the state—a view that leaves individuals vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority or the state.

Veatch's defense of natural law is also a defense of what Aristotle called "a natural justice"—a justice that is not merely conventional but is grounded in the nature of things. This natural justice provides a standard by which positive laws can be judged and, if necessary, resisted. It is the foundation of any genuine theory of human rights. 

Influence on Rasmussen and Den Uyl

Veatch's influence on contemporary philosophy has been considerable, particularly on the work of Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl. These two philosophers have acknowledged Veatch as a major influence on their thinking. Indeed, Rasmussen and Den Uyl's The Perfectionist Turn  (2016) opens with a quotation from Veatch's Rational Man: "In Aristotle's eyes, ethics does not begin with thinking of others; it begins with oneself".

Rasmussen and Den Uyl share with Veatch a commitment to Aristotelian realism, teleology, and natural law. They defend "a version of Aristotelian ethics" and argue that "the Aristotelian approach to ethics supports the natural rights which form the most secure basis for liberal principles". Like Veatch, they hold that "human flourishing is the ultimate moral standard".

Moreover, Rasmussen and Den Uyl have been instrumental in bringing Veatch's work to a new generation of readers. The Liberty Fund edition of Rational Man contains an introduction by  Rasmussen, and both philosophers have written appreciatively of Veatch's contributions. They have also described Veatch as seeing "human beings as part of a natural order that is not ultimately constructed by humans but is nonetheless knowable and open to human flourishing".

Points of Agreement

The agreement between Veatch and Rasmussen and Den Uyl is substantial. First, all three are committed to metaphysical realism—the view that there is a real world independent of our minds and that we can know it. Second, all three embrace teleology—the view that natural things, including human beings, have ends or purposes that determine what is good for them. Third, they all regard human nature as philosophically relevant, holding that moral obligations and rights are grounded in human nature and human flourishing. Fourth, all three are critical of Kantianism, which they see as separating morality from any grounding in human goods, and of postmodernism, which they see as leading to skepticism, subjectivism, and relativism. Fifth, all three emphasize the importance of rationality, practical wisdom, and practical agency in the moral life. Sixth, they all are defenders of individual liberty and human flourishing. Rasmussen and Den Uyl describe themselves as advocating individualistic perfectionism and Veatch's defense of natural rights provides a foundation for liberal principles. Indeed, Rasmussen and Den Uyl have argued that a realist turn—namely, one in which the natural order is the basis for individual rights—is needed to bring about a proper understanding and defense of liberty.

Points of Disagreement

Despite this deep agreement, there are also differences between Veatch and Rasmussen and Den Uyl. The most important disagreement concerns how natural rights are conceptualized and grounded.

Veatch holds that "natural rights are derived from duties one naturally owes to oneself". According to Veatch, each individual "has eudaimonic obligations of self-perfection to himself, and, in virtue of these obligations to self, all other persons are obligated not to prevent that person’s self-perfecting activity". In other words, rights are grounded in duties—specifically, the duty that each person owes to himself to pursue his own flourishing.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl, however, see flaws in Veatch's view. Their main criticism is that his argument cannot provide a person with any right protective of non-self-perfecting behavior. An individual will, at best, have rights vindicating his rightful (i.e., dutiful) actions. In other words, if rights are grounded in duties to oneself, then one has rights only insofar as one is fulfilling those duties. This would leave no room for rights that protect actions that are not directly aimed at self-perfection—including, perhaps, many of the ordinary activities of daily life.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl offer a different account of rights. For them, what a person owes himself for the sake of his own flourishing includes his support for and adherence to a system of rights universally protective of self-directedness. Rights are not derived from duties to oneself in a simple, linear way. Rather, the system of rights is a necessary condition for human flourishing. One has an obligation to support a system of rights because such a system is essential for flourishing—not because one has a direct duty to perform specific self-perfecting actions.

 Veatch viewed natural rights as a direct extension of natural law ethics. For Veatch, rights are normative claims derived from an individual's moral obligations to fulfill their natural end. The political order is tasked with fostering an environment where natural law and moral virtue can be pursued. Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue that Veatch’s direct derivation creates a structural tension when applied to a modern, pluralistic society containing diverse individual lives. They propose a fundamental distinction between normative ethics and metanormative principles. 

 Normative Ethics addresses the question, "How should I live a flourishing, virtuous life?" This is personal, highly individualized, and teleological).  Metanormative principles (rights) address the political/legal question, "How can diverse, individual moral agents coexist peacefully without compromising the self-directed nature of their respective pursuits of flourishing?" For Rasmussen and Den Uyl, natural rights) are not meant to compel personal virtue directly. Rather, rights are metanormative framework rules whose sole purpose is to protect the possibility of self-directed action for all individuals alike. Rights establish a political structure of non-interference.

Another difference concerns the relationship between the universal and the individual. Rasmussen and Den Uyl claim that universal and individual orders are separate. While Veatch emphasized the universal aspects of human nature and human perfection, Rasmussen and Den Uyl introduce a radical emphasis on the individualized and agent-relative character of eudaimonia. Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue that while human nature provides universal forms of goodness (e.g., health, knowledge, friendship, virtue), actual human flourishing is always particular, individual, and context-dependent. What constitutes flourishing for a specific person depends on his unique talents, circumstances, choices, and personal history. Because flourishing is inherently self-directed and individualized, it cannot be standardized, centrally planned, or forced upon an individual by a political authority. Veatch, while recognizing individual responsibility, remained closer to classical and Thomistic traditions that emphasize a more uniform, shared human good realized within a cohesive moral community.

Conclusion

 Veatch stands as one of the most important neo-Aristotelian philosophers of the twentieth century. His defense of metaphysical realism, teleology, and natural law represents a powerful alternative to the dominant trends of modern and postmodern philosophy. His account of human nature and practical wisdom offers a rich and nuanced vision of the moral life, one that avoids both the abstractions of Kantianism and the relativism of postmodernism.

Veatch's influence on contemporary philosophers such as Rasmussen and Den Uyl is a testament to the enduring power of his ideas. While Rasmussen and Den Uyl share Veatch's commitment to Aristotelian realism, teleology, and natural law, they have developed his views in important ways—particularly in their account of the grounding of natural rights. Their disagreements with Veatch are not rejections of his project but rather refinements and developments of it. 

In an age of philosophical confusion and moral uncertainty, Veatch's voice remains as relevant as ever. His insistence that philosophy must be grounded in reality, that ethics must be grounded in human nature, and that rights must be grounded in natural law offers a path forward for those who refuse to accept the skeptical and relativistic conclusions of so much modern thought. As Veatch himself might have said, swimming against the current is never easy—but it is sometimes the only way to reach the truth.

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References

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

 Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J. 1991. Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order. La Salle, IL: Open Court.

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

 Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J.  2018. "Remembering an Aristotelian Radical: Henry Veatch and Rational Man." Law & Liberty, September 19.

 Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Den Uyl, Douglas J. 2020. The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism. Palgrave MacMillan.

 Veatch, Henry B. 1952. Intentional Logic: A Logic Based on Philosophical Realism. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 Veatch, Henry B. Rational Man 1962. A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

 Veatch, Henry B. 1971. For an Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

 Veatch, Henry B. 1985. Human Rights: Fact or Fancy? Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

 Veatch, Henry B. 1990 Swimming Against the Current in Contemporary Philosophy. Occasional Essays and Papers. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.

 Veatch, Henry B. 1978.  "Natural Law: Dead or Alive?" Literature of Liberty 1, no. 4 (October–December).

 Veatch, Henry B. 1954.  Realism and Nominalism Revisited. Milwaukee: Marquette 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.