Stefan Gosepath, Free University Berlin Photo: Unknown © 2025

They face mounting internal and external challenges. Many of these challenges are rooted in crisis discourses, each with its own specific argumentative strategies. This talk will focus on four such discourses that attribute complicity in the crisis to the liberal order. 

The argument will proceed as follows: First, most diagnosed crises stem from either one-sided emphasis on certain parts of the liberal script or deficits in its practical application. Accordingly, the liberal script does not live up to its own claims.

Second, if broken promises are a significant reason for the proliferation of crisis discourse and challenges to the liberal script, then it implies that adherence to, implementation of, and expansion of liberal principles are required in response to legitimate criticism. However, defending the liberal script against these challenges as a defense of the status quo cannot succeed. What is defended must also be changed.

Third, there are problems permanently inscribed in the liberal order. Thus, the argument amounts to a plea for the transformation of the liberal order.

Bio

Stefan Gosepath is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Free University Berlin (Germany) and associated at the Departments of Politics there.
He is currently Principal Investigator of the cluster of excellence “The Contestation of the Liberal Script” (SCRIPTS) https://www.scripts-berlin.eu; Principal Investigator "The Deserving Rich - A Multidisciplinary Analysis of the (Re-)Production of (German) Wealth | funded by Volkswagenstiftung.

Until 2022 he was co-director of the Centre for Advanced Studies “Justitia Amplificata: Rethinking Justice: Applied and Global” http://www.justitia-amplificata.de (together with Rainer Forst).

Before coming to Berlin he was professor of International Political Theory and Philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt-am-Main, in the Cluster of Excellence, “The Formation of Normative Orders”. Previously he has been a professor at the universities of Bremen, Giessen, Potsdam, Vienna. He was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University, Columbia University (twice) and New York University. He is a member of the Academy of Science and Literature in Mainz. 

Gosepath is the author of two monographs:

• Aufgeklärtes Eigeninteresse. Eine Theorie theoretischer und praktischer Rationalität (“Enlightened Self-Interest: A Theory of Theoretical and Practical Rationality”, Suhrkamp 1992);
• Gleiche Gerechtigkeit. Grundlagen eines liberalen Egalitarismus (“Equal Justice: Foundations of a Liberal Egalitarianism”, Suhrkamp 2004).

He co-authored Einführung in die politische Philosophie (“Introduction to Political Philosophy”), Reclam 2013.

In addition he is editor of :

• Motive, Gründe, Zwecke. Theorien praktischer Rationalität (“Motives, Reasons, Purposes“, Fischer 1999). 

A​​​​​nd co-editor of:

• Philosophie der Menschenrechte (“Philosophy of Human Rights”, Suhrkamp 1998),
• Weltrepublik. Demokratie und Globalisierung (“World Republic: Democracy and Globalisation”, Beck 2002),
• Handbuch der Politischen Philosophie und Sozialphilosophie (HPPS) (“Companion to Political and Social Philosophy”, de Gruyter 2008),
• Philosophie der Moral (“Philosophy of Morality”, Suhrkamp 2009)
• ...dass es ein Ende mir mir haben muss. [… that I may know how frail I am] Münster: Mentis 2016.

In addition he has published extensively in the areas of practical reason and normativity, justice and equality, human rights and global justice, and on morality.

He was also Book Reviews Editor for the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie from 1998-2018.

Learn more at Gosepath's personal website  

Contact

Antoinette Scherz via e-mail:
antoinette.scherz@philosophy.su.se