2 Discourse ethics, democracy, and international law: toward a globalization of practical reason

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Jan, 2007 by Karl-Otto Apel

It belongs to the "self-consistency of reason" (Kant's Selbsteinstim-migkeit der Vernunft) that we cannot dispute, on pain of committing self-contradiction in our argument, that in serious argumentation we have already necessarily acknowledged certain fundamental norms of discourse ethics: namely, that we are all partners of an unlimited discourse community, having equal rights and, I emphasize, also equal co-responsibility for solving all communal problems. In this way, the fundamental norms require us to actively seek solutions for all moral problems as well, but only in accordance with the procedural rules of a serious discourse, that is to say, without open or concealed strategic use of language and, of course, without the intervention of violence. In the case of moral problems, we have also acknowledged that, along with the procedural rules of discourse, we should justify norms of action in accordance with a principle of universalization--a principle that, on the level of discourse ethics, roughly corresponds to Kant's first formulation of the "categorical imperative." It states that valid norms that have to be universally followed should be acceptable with regard to their expectable consequences by all affected persons.

Jurgen Habermas, who has also formulated this principle, recently declared that it is not yet an "imperative" of discourse ethics, but only a "rule of argumentation" for "practical discourses." (5) As I understand it, this means that for Habermas the principle of discourse ethics (or, rather, of "moral philosophy") (6) cannot be grounded immediately by recourse to the "discourse principle," but only on the level of application of the practical discourse, that is, together and equiprimordially with law. (7) Thus, the "discourse principle" that makes up the normative basis of "discourse theory" (and no longer of "discourse ethics"!) (8) is "morally neutral" according to the recent position of Habermas, since only the applicative differentiation of practical discourse constitutes the norms of morals and of law.

According to my foundational architectonics, however, I would partly confirm and partly contradict this Habermasian approach. First, I should insist that the discourse principle is not "morally neutral" and that the universalization principle, which immediately follows from the discourse principle, is not only a rule of argumentation but a moral imperative as well. For without these two principles that are transcendentally implied in the conditions of serious argumentation, the ethical conditions of the application of discourse to the empirical-life world would not be grounded; and thus, the very obligation of settling concrete moral problems by practical discourses, which Habermas acknowledges as a basic feature of practical discourse, would also remain ungrounded. And without this grounding, the application of the moral norms would lack the validity derived from the universalization principle. This would mean that any practical discussions that are not connected a priori with the ethical co-responsibility of those who in the real-life world argue for the solution of communal problems could not hope to succeed by recourse to practical discourse. Rather, lacking the principles of universality and discourse ethics, such "problem solving" could violate basic morality and (by the strategic use of language) even lead to violence. Hence, I conclude from this disagreement with Habermas that the entire point of establishing and defending the foundation of discourse ethics would be lost.