Universalism in the Name of the Power of Judgment?

Abstract

This article discusses Seyla Benhabib’s transformation of Jurgen Habermas’s discourse ethics. It focusses on her interpretation of communicative moral reason by reference to actual „moral conversations“. While she does not draw on universal pragmatics, Benhabib still claims that her ethical theory represents a form of universalism. This study argues that this claim is misleading: Benhabib’s discourse ethics points to a culture of moral judgment that is essentially open to different kinds of moral thinking. Such a culture, however, needs moral humility and cannot appropriately be called „universalism“.