Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics

by Jürgen Habermas

This volume presents Habermas's most recent contributions to ethical theory, expanding and clarifying his controversial theory of discourse ethics. Responding to criticisms of his theory, Habermas defends the claim of discourse ethics to a central position in contemporary moral philosophy. He explains and refines the key concepts of his approach and extends the argument in certain key respects, including his treatment of practical reason and of the problems of application and motivation.
The first chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of practical rationality which establishes a clear demarcation between pragmatic, ethical and moral questions and a corresponding differentiation between forms of volition and spheres of practical discourse. Habermas then develops a wide-ranging defence of discourse ethics and provides a masterly critique of the major competing positions, such as those of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Karl-Otto Apel and Albrecht Wellmer. The remaining chapters defend the basic intention of universalist moral theory in the face of the claims of the neo-Aristotelian ethic of the good and of Horkheimer's scepticism towards reason. An interview with Habermas, covering such topics as the genesis of discourse ethics, the precise import of some of its more controversial elements and its interconnections with the theory of communicative action, concludes the volume. Justification and Application engages with some of the most important and controversial issues in social and political theory and philosophy today. It will be welcomed by students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Sociology

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and American pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics—particularly German politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

HABERMAS GOES BEYOND “MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION”

Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) is a German philosopher and sociologist who is one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1991 book, “With this book I continue the investigation set forth in ‘Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action’ (1990). The background to the discussion is formed primarily by objections against universalistic concepts of morality that can be traced back to Aristotle, Hegel, and contemporary [ethical] contextualism. Going beyond the sterile opposition between abstract universalism and a self-contradictory relativism, I endeavor to defend the primacy of the just … over the good. That does not mean, however, that ethical questions in the narrow sense have to be excluded from rational treatment… The ‘Remarks on Discourse Ethics’ constitute the main text and derive from notes made during the years 1987 to 1990. They represent a confrontation with competing theoretical programs and are offered as a global critical evaluation of the relevant literature.”

He states, “Presuppositions of rationality do not impose OBLIGATIONS to act rationally; they make possible the practice the practice that participants understand as argumentation. The program of justification pursued by discourse ethics sets itself the task of deriving from suppositions of rationality of this kind a rule of argumentation for discourses in which moral norms can be justified. It attempts to show that moral questions can be decided rationally as a general rule.” (Pg. 31-32)

He says, “We do not adhere to recognized norms from a sense of duty because they are IMPOSED upon us by the threat of sanctions but because we GIVE them to ourselves… Norms we give to ourselves may express our own orders, and thus mere choices… in which case they lack the very quality that would make them binding norms. It is not because recognized norms are CERTIFIED by custom and tradition that we observe them from a sense of duty but because we take them to be justified.” (Pg. 42)

He notes, “An untruthful statement that saves the life of another is no less morally commanded than killing in cases of self-defense or refraining from offering assistance to avoid a greater evil are morally permissible. Valid norms are valid only in a ‘prima facie’ sense. Regardless of whether they rest on double negations, ALL rights and duties play the same role in discourses of application, namely, that of reasons. In cases of conflict between norms, it can be shown only on the basis of a maximally complete description of all relevant features of the given situation WHICH of the competing norms is appropriate to a particular case.” (Pg. 63-64)

He suggests, “Communicative reason, unlike practical reason, is not itself a source of norms of right action. It spans the FULL spectrum of validity claims (of assertoric truth, subjective truthfulness, and normative rightness) and hence extends beyond the sphere of moral-practical questions. Normativity in the more restricted sense of a binding practical orientation is not identical with the rationality of action oriented to reaching understanding as a whole. Normativity and rationality OVERLAP in the field of justification or moral insights that are attainted in a hypothetical attitude and, as we have seen, generate only weak rational motivations and at any rate cannot sustain an existential understanding of self and world.” (Pg. 81)

He concludes the ‘Remarks on Discourse Ethics’ essay with the statement, “[I believe] there are good ETHICAL REASONS that speak in favor of the protection of plants and species, reasons that become apparent once we ask ourselves seriously how, as members of a civilized global society, we want to live on this planet and how, as members of our own species, we want to treat other species. In certain respects, AESTHETIC REASONS have here even greater force than ethical, for in the aesthetic experience of nature, things withdraw into an unapproachable autonomy and inaccessibility; then they exhibit their fragile integrity so clearly that they strike as an inviolable in their own right and not merely as desirable elements of a preferred form of life.’ (Pg. 111)

He argues, “I will defend a thesis that does not sit well with the spirit of the times: that anyone who has grown up in a reasonably functional family, who has formed his identity in relations of mutual recognition, who maintains himself in the network of reciprocal expectations and perspectives built into the pragmatics of the speech situation and communicative action, cannot fail to have acquired moral intuitions of the kind articulated in propositions such as that of [William] James. The maxim asserts that reciprocal dependence of socialization and individuation, the interrelation between personal autonomy and social solidarity.” (Pg. 114)

In an essay on Max Horkheimer, he asserts, “Horkheimer praises the dark writers of the bourgeoisie for having ‘trumpeted far and wide the impossibility of deriving from reason any fundamental argument against murder.’ I have to admit that this remark irritates me now no less than it did almost four decades ago when I first read it. I have never been altogether convinced of the cogency of the skepticism concerning reason underlying Horkheimer’s ambivalence toward religion. The idea that it is vain to strive for unconditional meaning without God betrays not just a metaphysical need; the remark is itself an instance of the metaphysics that not only philosophers but even theologians themselves must today get along without.” (Pg. 134) Later, he adds, “Postmetaphysical thought differs from religion in that it receives the meaning of the unconditional without recourse to God or an Absolute.” (Pg. 146)

This book will be of key interest to anyone studying Habermas, or the Frankfurt School.

[Eng. Mohamed ali · Rating 1 out of 5]

كتاب ممكن يكون مفيد ومتعمق ولكن للمتخصصين فى الفلسفة وليس حتى الطلاب ولكن الاكاديمين على مستوى عالى ولكن بالنسبة للقارى العادى لن يستفيد من الكتاب بمعلومة

[Turbulent_Architect · Rating 3 out of 5]

Habermas' attempt to flesh out the sketch of a discourse theory of morality first laid out in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. There are a few interesting developments here. Probably the most important one is the internal relation Habermas posits between "ethics" in the sense of culturally variable conceptions of the good life and "morality" in the sense of interpersonal norms of justice. A related doctrine here is the need to pair discourses of justification, which serve to legitimate norms, with discourses of application, which adapt them to particular contexts. It's probably better than Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action as a general overview of the discourse theory of morality. At the same time, though, much of it strikes me, as deontological theories tend to, as very arbitrary and ultimately quite unconvincing.