Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T19:29:22.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Goes Wrong in Habermas’s Pragmatic Justification of (U)?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2017

JUVÉNAL NDAYAMBAJE Open the ORCID record for JUVÉNAL NDAYAMBAJE [Opens in a new window]
JUVÉNAL NDAYAMBAJE*
Affiliation:
Université Catholique de Louvain
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In his moral theory, named ‘discourse ethics,’ Jürgen Habermas holds that a norm is morally valid only when it is universalizable. He establishes the principle of universalization (U) as the procedural principle for testing the moral validity of norms in moral discourse. He argues that this principle can be derived from the pragmatic presuppositions of argumentation in general. By explicating the fiduciary status of pragmatic presuppositions of argumentation, and by distinguishing perspectival from comprehensive universalization, I argue that Habermas fails to justify his moral principle.

Dans sa théorie morale, dénommée «éthique de la discussion», Jürgen Habermas considère qu’une norme n’est moralement valide que lorsqu’elle est universalisable. Il propose le principe d’universalisation (U) comme principe de procédure pour tester la validité morale des normes dans une discussion pratique. Il fonde ce principe sur les présuppositions pragmatiques de l’argumentation en général. Par la présentation du statut fiduciaire de ces dernières, et en distinguant l’universalisation partielle de l’universalisation globale, cet article vise à montrer pourquoi Habermas ne parvient pas à justifier son principe moral.

Keywords

argumentationimmanent justificationpragmatic presuppositionsperspectival universalizationcomprehensive universalizationparticipant’s attitudetheorist’s attitude
Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 89 - 110
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Apel, Karl-Otto 1998 Auseinandersetzungen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Apel, Karl-Otto 2001 The Response of Discourse Ethics to the Moral Challenge of the Human Situation as Such and Especially Today. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Ferrara, Alessandro 2002 “The Ambiguity of Habermas’s Notion of Generalizability,” in Rasmussen, David M. and Swindal, James (eds.), Jürgen Habermas Vol. IV. London: Sage Publications, 3–12.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Gordon 2000 “Modernity and Morality in Habermas’s Discourse Ethics,” Inquiry 43 (3): 319–340.Google Scholar
Gunnarsson, Logi 2000 Making Moral Sense: Beyond Habermas and Gauthier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1975 Legitimation Crisis. Boston: Bacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1987 The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1990 Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1992 Autonomy and Solidarity, Interviews with Jürgen Habermas, edited by Dews, Peter. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1993 Justification and Application. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1996 Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1998 The Inclusion of the Other. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2001 “From Kant’s ‘Ideas’ of Pure Reason to the ‘Idealizing’ Presuppositions of Communicative Action: Reflections on the Detranscendentalized ‘Use of Reason,’” in Rehg, William and Bohman, James (eds.), Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn: The Transformation of Critical Theory. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 88–113.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2001 Kommunikatives Handeln und detranszendentalisierte Vernunft. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2003 Truth and Justification. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2008 Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Joseph 2003 Communicative Action and Rational Choice. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Joseph 1995 “The Problem of Foundationalism in Habermas’s Discourse Ethics,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 21 (1): 77–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunyadi, Mark 2008 Morale Contextuelle. Laval: Presses de l’Université Laval.Google Scholar
Hunyadi, Mark 2009 « L’idée d’une contrefactualité contextuelle ou : comment ne pas devoir transcender tous les contextes possibles, comme le veut Habermas? » Revue philosophique de Louvain 107 (2): 319–349.Google Scholar
Hunyadi, Mark 2012 L’Homme en contexte. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmund 2014 Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, translated by Dahlstrom, Daniel. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lumer, Christoph 1997 “Habermas’ Diskursethik,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 51 (1): 42–64.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair 1988 Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Ott, Konrad 1996 Vom Begründen zum Handeln: Aufzätze zur angewandten Ethik. Tübingen: Attempto-Verlag.Google Scholar
Rehg, William 2002 “Discourse and the Moral Point of View: Deriving a Dialogical Principle of Universalization,” in Rasmussen, David M. and Swindal, James (eds.), Jürgen Habermas Vol. III. London: Sage Publications, 137–157.Google Scholar
Steinhoff, Uwe 2009 The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Paul 1963 “The Ethnocentric Fallacy,” The Monist 47 (4): 563–584.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael 1994 Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. London: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Wellmer, Albrecht 1991 The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics and Postmodernity. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar