Torrino, Ellen Wyze B. Mme.
Guillen Te
BSN 2B
GEC- Ethics
Narrative: Jurgen Habermas
Jurgen Habermas is a german sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical
theory and pragmatism. He was born with a cleft palate and underwent corrective surgery twice
during childhood. He is best known for his theories on communicative rationality and public
sphere. Habermas is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading intellectuals in global polls.
He argues that his speech disability made him think differently about the importance of
communication and prefer writing over the speaking as a medium of communication.
Habermas is a famous teacher and mentor. One of his prominent students was Herbert
Schnaldelback the theorist of discourse distinction and rationality. He has also constructed a
comprehensive framework of social theory and philosophy by drawing on a number of
intellectual traditions like the German philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich
Schelling, G.W.F. Hegel, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Hursserl and Hans-George Gadamer.
Discourse Ethics
Habermas’ moral theory is called Discourse Ethics or theory of argumentation. It’s
design for contemporary societies where moral agents encounter pluralistic notions of the food
and try to act on the basis of publicly justificable principles. His moral theory is grounded on the
principle of discourse ethics, which can be viewed as a principle of argumentation.
Inorder to understand Habermas’ theory, we have take a look on Hegel’s Dialectic.
Hegel’s Dialectic is a process when a thesis and an anti-thesis clash and forms a synthesis.
These theses and anti-thesis are going to continue to clash until it reaches the absolute
knowledge and understanding of all.
4 Presuppositions of Discourse
1. To have genuine discourse, one must aim at rational consensus
2. It is possible to attain rational consensus
3. It is possible to tell a true concensus from a false consensus
4. Only rational consensus can ground truth claims a valid and binding for all participants
In discourse ethics, Habermas communicatively grounded and revised Kant’s categorical
imparative of universality, which he viewed as incorrectly monologic, abstract and strategic.
Kant argued that valid norms are those that one individual could decide should be universal law
after solitary considering the consequences for everyone. Habermas argued that valid norms
must be publically and discursively defensible. His theory suggested a kind of democracy where
the constitution and law is open to public discussion and suggestions.
Three characterics of discourse ethics:
Cognitivism: First, discourse ethics starts from the assumption that even moral problems are
capable of being solved in a rational and cognitive way. This is against a moral scepticism which
asserts that questions of practical reason could not be decided on rational grounds: "The non-
cognitivistic conceptions are reducing the value of the whole world of moral intuitions based in
Torrino, Ellen Wyze B. Mme. Guillen Te
BSN 2B
GEC- Ethics
everyday-life." (J. Habermas, "Moralbewußtsein und kommunikatives Handeln," S.65) With this
confession to a cognitivism in moral theory, however, Habermas does not intend to assimilate
the specific phenomenon of 'morality' to what is the domain of cognitivism, 'truth.' To say it in
analytic terms: normative sentences could not be treated as propositions or as assertive
sentences. There is obvious difference between "You ought not kill" and "This grass is green".
Hence the term "moral truth" is a quite difficult one, as Habermas himself recognizes. And thus
he claims for normative sentences only the 'weaker assumption of a validity claim that is
analogous to the validity claim of truth'. This weaker assumption implies two consequences.
First, with this restriction Habermas take a step back from transcendental foundations as 'final
grounding' [Letztbegründung]. Secondly Habermas situates the validity claim of normative
sentences in a social-evolutionary context: the differentiation of the validity claims of normative
justification and of truth is the result of the process of modernization. Discourse ethics is a
normative ethics for pluralistic societies which no longer have a single, overarching moral
authority.
Justice vs. Good: Another second basic decision results from the cognitivistic theory of ethics:
questions of morality are defined as questions of justifying norms. The mediating structure of
'substantive ethics' [Sittlichkeit], which is crucial to Hegel's central critique of Kant's moral
theory, is in Habermas' theory only important for particular forms of life [Lebensformen] and
contexts. In his conception of the lifeworld [Lebenswelt] Habermas has worked out the
limitedness [Begrenztheit]of this horizon - a limitedness which is culturally, historically, and
socially mediated, and within which takes place the substantial determination of our
imaginations and aims to fulfill individually our 'good life.' The phenomenal domain of morality,
as Habermas understands it, is, in his view, structured by intersubjectivity quite differently from
the phenomenal domain of substantive ethics [Sittlichkeit]. The 'moral point of view' has a force
to transcend the particularity of the contexts. We are entering the sphere of morality when we
are in conflict with others, when there is conflict and dissent ['dissens']. Moral theory has the
task of preparing our means of responding [Instrumentarium]to a partial destruction of the
lifeworld [Lebenswelt]. Moral theory provides a sort of mending or repair. Thus Habermas
differentiates strictly between 'questions of the good life' and 'questions of justice'. (In this
direction lies also the difference between 'norms' and 'values.') This is quite plausible because
determining what a 'good life' is, under conditions of a value pluralism, has to be necessarily a
limited determination. For that reason, Habermas emphasizes the role of a formal moral theory,
such as discourse ethics, in creating the 'free spaces' [Freiräume] needed for a pluralism of
many different 'good lives.'
But certainly moral questions arise in contexts of the lifeworld, where our beliefs and decisions
are shaped by values, habits and prejudices. Here reappears the problem: to what degree must
moral theory transcend the particularity of the lifeworld, so as to ensure impartiality and justice -
without, on the other hand, being so general and universal that it is no longer relevant as a
criterion for moral conflicts?
Universalization: The essential point of discourse ethics by Habermas is formulated in the
principle of universalization and what it entails - namely, the principle of discourse. Habermas
Torrino, Ellen Wyze B. Mme. Guillen Te
BSN 2B
GEC- Ethics
reformulates the Kantian version of the principle of universalization in terms of intersubjectivity.
To begin with, the principle of universalization explains what our everyday, but postconventional
intuition would outline for us as a strategy for solving moral conflicts: the principle of impartiality.
This basic assumption of impartiality already draws a line between a cognitivistic and universal
ethics and an ethics oriented towards solidarity, as advocated by Carol Gilligan (In a Different
Voice, 1982). The psychologist Carol Gilligan criticized L. Kohlberg's theory of moral
development, especially its emphasis on the level of 'postconventionality' as the highest and
'best' level of moral judgment. Gilligan's critique applies first of all to Kohlberg's reduction of
moral judgments to a formal procedure of justice - a procedure which is ultimately a procedure
of 'postconventionality.' While Gilligan's critique of biases in Kohlberg's model is quite fruitful, a
first problem in her approach is that she provides no way of distinguishing coerced solidarity
from voluntary solidarity. There is a second problem inherent in decisions guided by solidarity:
those decisions could be easily unjust and unfair decisions for those who are are affected by
those decisions, but who are not part of the shared community [and thus excluded from the
discussions in the first place].
Discourse Ethics rules of reason are freedom to participate, freedom of speech, and
participants are free from force or coercion. Such rules are seen to circumscribe the ideal
speech situation, one which stresses equality and freedom for each participant-especially
Freedom to participate in the discourse in critical ways so as to express one’s own attitudes,
desires, and needs, and freedom from coercion of several sorts.
Conclusively, Habermas’ theory of discourse stipulates that the only norms that can be
accepted as valid norms are those that meet or could meet with the approval of all affected in
their capacity as participants in a practical discourse.
