The Critical Potential of Discourse Ethics: Reply to Meehan and Chambers

Abstract

Simone Chambers' and Johanna Meehan's comments are both thoughtful and thought-provoking, and for this I am quite grateful. I will address Meehan's criticisms first, for these raise questions of overall theoretical strategy. The response to Meehan in turn suggests how we might solve some of Chamber's puzzles. Unlike many of Habermas's commentators, who treat his discourse ethics (DE) primarily as a theory of political justice, in Insight and Solidarity (IS) I consider this theory precisely as a moral theory-which is not to deny its im? plications for a broader critical project. Meehan seems to consider this a du? bious move that engenders a flaw in the book. In fact, Habermas himself presents DE as a general theory of moral objectivity, that is, an account of how moral statements (obligations, prohibitions, and permissions), though distinct from truth claims, can nonetheless have a cognitive content. Specifically, moral norms and judgments can enjoy an intersubjective validity acquired through rational argumentation.1 This account of moral validity incurs certain theo? retical burdens?burdens that Habermas himself willingly accepts and that IS attempts to satisfy. Most obviously, one must define rational argumentation. To this end Habermas develops his principle of universalization (U), which tells us under what conditions consensus on a norm qualifies as rational, that is, expresses an insight into the better argument.2 Notice that in this context "insight" refers, not to the flash experience of hitting on a new idea, but rather to the grasp of the comparative justificatory force of competing arguments. It is at this point that the theoretical difficulties begin, but notice that the central difficulty arises, not from treating DE as a moral theory, but from the argumentation-theoretic idealizations built into U. If we work out the full im? plications of U, "insight into the better argument" can only arise as a joint, intersubjective achievement. Thus U goes beyond the philosophy of the sub? ject: I cannot have an insight that some norm N is morally justified unless you and everyone subject to N have the same insight. This means that moral argu? mentation must be fully reversible and free of all distorting influences?a de? manding idealization. But Habermas sets a still more difficult challenge for discourse ethics: the validity of N can be established only in real discourses *