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Previous accounts of International Relations research have extensively focused on deontological ethics in analysing Responsibility to Protect (R2P). At the same time, discourse ethics – along with ...

In this article, I revise the normative account of sport that I proposed in ‘William J. Morgan’s “conventionalist internalism” approach. Furthering internalism? A critical hermeneutical response.’ ...

This is a lightly edited transcript of a plenary talk given at the Beyond Positivism conference, Montreal, August 8–10 2017. The talk followed others by Christopher Winship and Frederic Van...

As a comment on the debate between Dave Elder-Vass and Leigh Price, I propose a dialogue between Bhaskar and Habermas. If we could introduce critical realism into critical theory, we might be able ...

Rights are commonly distinguished in African ethics from Western rights according to the distinct ideas of personhood which ground them. However, this sacrifices universality for cultural s...

The problem of communication as a function of democracy has occupied research in the social sciences for several decades now. It has been particularly central to Habermas’s conceptualisation of the...

The present paper is an analysis of the recently formulated concept of Lived Pedagogy. With roots in phenomenology and narrative research and research on ‘student voice’, the concept is coined as a way to research participants’ experience of practical pedagogy in school. The main theoretical and methodological challenges in Lived Pedagogy stem from the use of relational theory (i.e. phenomenology and narrative theory) while a priori maintaining a number of divisions that challenge this relational logic. Having outlined these problems, a suggestion is made to inform Lived Pedagogy by way of the German Padagogik with its central focus on purpose(s) of education. Specifically, I employ Lovlie’s educational transformation of Habermas’s discourse ethics as a framework for structuring the deliberation of what is educationally desirable.

In this paper, we discuss the bridging potential of “interspecies” solidarity between the often incommensurable ethics of care and justice. Indeed, we show that the Environmental Communication literature emphasizes feelings of care and compassion as vectors of responsibility taking for animals. But we also show that a growing field of Political Animal Rights suggest that such responsibility taking should instead be grounded in universalizable terms of justice. Our argument is that a dual conception of solidarity can bridge this divide: On the one hand, solidarity as a pre-political relation with animals and, on the other hand, as a political practice based on open public deliberation of universalizable claims to justice; that is, claims to justice advanced by human proxy representatives of vulnerable non-humans. Such a dual conception can both challenge and validate NGOs’ claims to “speak on behalf of animals” in policy following the Aarhus Convention, indeed underwriting the Convention by insight...

Reporting of two prominent AIDS-related deaths in South Africa in the early 2000s, at a time of intense public controversy about official policy on HIV, provides an illustration of how ethical norms in journalism may shift over time. The media’s coverage of the first death drew strong criticism and debate on ethical grounds, specifically about the balance between privacy and the public interest; truth and evidence; and the limits of advocacy. The change in approach noticeable in the handling of the second case is attributable at least partly to this public discourse on ethical norms and their application. That change became formalised in revisions of the South African Press Code. The example illustrates the way in which Discourse Ethics, as theorised by Apel and Habermas, can provide a framework to understand how shifts in ethical norms may be effected in social discourse. It thereby illustrates one productive application of the theory, and also makes it possible to draw out some implications for the broa...

Digital knowledge technologies such as urban computer models, geographic information systems, and planning support systems are often critiqued as black boxes whose use in planning results in the domination of expert views over stakeholder perspectives. These concerns are not adequately addressed by collaborative planning theory, which reflects Habermas’s problematic assumption that technology is primarily associated with instrumental rationality. Within the realm of planning discussion Habermas’s concept of media provides a description of how to draw insights from technologies while minimizing their potential for oppression. However, conducting democratic inquiry with knowledge technologies requires moving beyond discourse ethics and fostering critical interaction between technology creators and planning stakeholders, where choices about the process, goals and scope, representation, and epistemic norms are made jointly. These ideas are illustrated with three examples of knowledge technologies used...

This study aimed to throw light on the implied and tacit moral philosophical features of rulings from an apparently effective and well-respected press council. Statements from the Norwegian Press Council are analyzed from the perspective of 3 ethical theories. The analysis shows that the institutionalized media ethics as presented by this authoritative body have distinct features of discourse ethics, while perspectives of virtue ethics are surprisingly absent. The Norwegian Press Council is preoccupied with procedural norms for the public discourse and pays less attention to the character of the journalist and the quality of the journalism. Some reflections in accordance with ethics of proximity can be traced in the council’s statements but take second place in relation to other considerations.

The theoretical framework of discourse ethics, as developed chiefly by Jurgen Habermas, has significant capacity to contribute to debates around media ethics. By rooting themselves in what are seen as fundamentals of human communication, discourse ethics establish a procedural, social account of ethics which can account for both universal proto-norms and historic and culturally contingent variations. This article explores the approach's fundamental ideas and applies them to the media, seen as an important arena for discourse in modern democracies. Fruitful applications include the development of a refined normative notion of the role of journalism as enabling discourse, which provides a basis for critique. It creates an explicit yardstick against which particular media institutions, practices, sectors and landscapes can be judged for the extent to which they support and enable ideal communication, understood to satisfy norms of inclusivity, openness and justice. In addition, the discourse ethical ...

I argue that several recent criticisms Lopez Frias has made against my conventionalist version of broad internalism fail to hit their mark. I further argue that the author's use of Habermas's account of discourse ethics to make his criticisms also misfires because Habermas expressly warned against using his account to resolve normative conflicts that arise from the often conflicting ways different communities order their ethical lives, to include their athletic lives. My main aim in responding to Lopez Frias was to bring critical attention to the normative difficulties that result when we cannot agree on how sport should be done because we cannot agree on what is/are the purpose(s) of sport.

Considering the German idea of Bildung, I argue that it is a central concern of Habermas. First, he criticized the idea of being educated as a sign of innate abilities, emphasizing instead the significance of the social conditions of the upbringing. Subsequently, inspired by Adorno, he performed an analysis of Bildung, based on critique of ideology, in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The basic critique is that Bildung is too tightly connected to societal dominance, but still the ideal holds some truth. His comments on Bildung over the subsequent years are sparse. However, in Knowledge and Human Interest he works his way out of the framework of philosophy of consciousness, which results in the Theory of Communicative Action, and with this approach he can discuss Bildung in relation to discourse ethics and the role of the university. In this new version, Bildung finally becomes crucial to Habermas' political philosophy in Between Facts and Norms.

Problem-solving justice is analysed in terms of democratic theory about the conditions under which courts are justified in applying coercive sanctions. The guilty plea process forces defendants to forego evidentiary proof and accept treatment and surveillance. All problem-solving ‘courts', which actually are corrections agencies, operate this way. This violates the legitimating triadic structure in which judges adjudicate, not medicate. Two popular problem-solving models are therapeutic justice and restorative justice. The therapeutic model is individualistic and emphasises personal responsibility, consistent with neoliberal penality. The restorative model is socially and communally oriented, but in practice it must be legally constrained from applying unwise popular prejudices. Habermas's theory of communicative action and discourse ethics of democratic deliberation presents an alternative to both models. Communicative interaction implies a commitment to factual truth, sincerity, and normativity ...

This paper discusses the role of international professional discourse in responding to cases of ethical and cultural dissonance. The discussion builds on the recent controversy over proposed legislation that would further criminalize homosexual behaviour in Uganda and the responses from international and regional professional organizations. For social work, the case was compounded by a statement from a local social work leader. The contributions and limitations of global ethical principles and international human rights standards in such cases are considered, with special attention to the salience of universalism and cultural relativism. Principles of discourse ethics and leadership ethics are also applied in the analysis. The authors conclude by recommending a moderately universalist stance that respects the dignity of all humans while preserving positive elements of African culture and worldview.

The article explores different approaches to the theoretical grounding of public use of reason developed by Habermas, Kant and Rawls. It is focused on Habermas's idea of communicative rationality and the public sphere, and then this approach is related to Kantian practical reason and Rawls's idea of public reason. The article highlights liberal and republican elements in Habermass concept of public sphere, and emphasises that liberal concepts of democracy require public reason as a device of justification of constitutional norms, while the republican idea of popular sovereignty opens up the popular public sphere. The second part of the article describes the tension between the counterfactual nature of Habermas's discourse ethics and its practical realisation in deliberative politics in institutions of the state. Članek raziskuje različne pristope k teoretskemu utemeljevanju javne rabe uma, ki so jih ponudili Habermas, Kant in Rawls. Usmerja se na Habermasovo idejo javnosti in komunikativne racionalnosti, potem pa njegov pristop primerja s Kantovim praktičnim umom in Rawlsovo idejo javnega uma. Članek izpostavlja liberalne in republikanske elemente Habermasovega pojma javnosti ter pri tem pokaže, da liberalno pojmovanje demokracije zahteva javni um kot mehanizem upravičenja ustavnih norm, medtem kot republikanska ideja ljudske suverenosti odpira široko javnost ljudstva. V drugem delu članek opiše napetost med kontrafaktično naravo Habermasove diskurzivne etike in njeno praktično realizacijo v deliberativni politiki državnih institucij.

This paper will begin with an explication of the central tenets of Nussbaum's capabilities theory. The next section examines Nussabum's two-fold justification of capabilities; namely, the substantive good approach (or intuitionism), which serves as the primary justification, and a version of Kantian proceduralism, which provides ancillary support. The following section focuses on Jaggar's critique of Nussbaum. Here, I will discuss three criteria of adequacy for a global ethic and their importance, why we should accept them and how both of Nussbaum's justification strategies fail to satisfy them. In the fifth section, I propose a version of discourse ethics as an alternative justification for capabilities that can satisfy the adequacy discerned from Jaggar's critique. This account of discourse ethics reveals that intersubjective dialogue under certain conditions is more likely to provide adequate justification of capabilities, and those engaged in dialogue are also likely to develop practical reason and af...

Although certain aspects of the work of Habermas have had much influence on emancipatory and action research, this article draws on a wider range of his thinking in order to explore how his ideas can inform the content and process of educational researcher development programmes. Habermas's theory of communicative action, his discourse ethics and his work on deliberative democracy suggest a process for examining perspectives, methodologies and the ‘truths’ offered by research on terms congruent with their epistemologies. The implications of the proposed framework are that a plurality of ontological and epistemological positions should be presented in educational researcher development programmes and, for this to happen, representative voices need to be heard. The search for and construction of knowledge as a cumulative and revisable process of communicative action is proposed as a model for discourse on such programmes.

This article is a personal reflection on some of the ethical issues experienced before, during and after undertaking qualitative research in the UK National Health Service (NHS).

As a result of simultaneous developments, including the proliferation of opportunities for online feedback, the application of discourse ethics to journalism, and a greater emphasis on journalistic accountability, the time is ripe for revisiting opportunities that online mechanisms provide for holding journalists accountable to audiences. This paper proposes recommendations to guide hosting online comments in light of the Habermasian framework of discourse ethics developed by Glasser and Ettema (2008). It also explores the limits of such approaches in nations with different press models, such as the development model as practiced in China.

Using the example of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism, and especially the writings of Sayyid Qutb, this article raises questions about discourse ethics as a mode of conflict resolution. It appears that discourse ethics is only relevant when all parties have already agreed to settle disputes deliberatively and already share the notions of rational deliberation and individual autonomy. This raises questions not only about the capability of discourse ethics to incorporate a deep plurality of worldviews, but also about its capability to successfully solve disputes. When confronting situations where the willingness to deliberate is absent, discourse ethics is left standing empty handed. This, I argue, is due to both the conceptual distinction between communicative action and strategic action, as well as the abstracted nature of Habermas's discourse ethics.

Peacebuilding without cultural sensitivity is empty; cultural sensitivity without cosmopolitan values is blind. Sustainability considerations require that peacebuilding approaches are locally accepted, and this local acceptance depends not least on the degree to which these approaches are commensurate with local understandings and cultural practices. The problem with the recommendation of focusing on local cultures, however, is that these practices are neither monolithic nor necessarily compatible with the aim of working towards less violent societies. Some value basis is therefore inevitable. Essentially, peacebuilding agendas need to start with fostering mutual recognition among former adversaries. On the basis of mutual recognition and on the grounds of values such as equality and compassion as framework principles, more detailed guidelines for political and socioeconomic rearrangements can be negotiated, while ideals of discourse ethics partially entail and partially supplement this value ground.

Political science has recently devoted some attention to the study of legislative deliberation. But it has reached no consensus about the basic concepts and approaches for investigating such deliberation. We identify four distinct normative perspectives in the legislative deliberation literature, and give particular attention to two of them—one that focuses on a debate's compliance with expectations of discourse ethics, and one that focuses on the substantive adequacy and intelligence of its consideration of policy issues. We consider the major comparative study by Steiner, Bachtiger, Sporndli and Steenbergen (2004) to clarify its relation to the various perspectives. We then discuss the challenges and possibilities for the perspective concerned directly with the intelligence of deliberation in more detail. In the largest part of this article, we provide an overview of our own work employing this perspective, presented in our recent book, Deliberative Choices: Debating Public Policy in Congress. F...

The discussion of the potential of Habermas' discourse ethics to help us better understand, and perhaps even improve, the making of public policy touches on a number of relevant issues, but perhaps...

The grounds for critique offered by Roy Bhaskar have developed over the course of his work, but two claims have remained central: ethical naturalism and moral realism. I argue that neither of these is compatible with a scientific realist understanding of values: a scientific realist approach commits one to treating values as socially produced and historically contingent. This does not, however, prevent us from reasoning about values, nor from developing critiques by combining ethical reasoning with a theoretical understanding of the social world and its possibilities. In particular, we can draw on a variety of Habermas's discourse ethics to offer provisional justifications for value-claims that support a critical stance. Thus we can develop grounds for critique that are both ontologically credible and anti-foundational, but also judgementally rational.

Minorities comprise a tiny fraction of media owners, and continued media consolidation exacerbates existing disparities. This article examines this problem by integrating the work of Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Ellul. These theorists identify a common concern—described alternately as technicization and colonization—involving homogenization of content, loss of localism, and decreased ownership diversity. In different ways, each acknowledges the possibility that social action can make a difference. Habermas' discourse ethics provides a normative foundation for arguing on behalf of ownership diversity and policy reform. Though Ellul is skeptical of institutional reform, he offers a complementary vision of concrete action on the part of local, independent community groups. While their solutions are different, we argue that both are necessary. Media reform efforts must incorporate both Habermasian and Ellulian approaches by supplementing federal regulatory reform with independent grassroots activism. A combina...

Until recently, businesses and corporations could argue that their only real commitments were to maximise the return to their shareholders whilst staying within the law. However, the world has changed significantly during the last ten years and now most major corporations recognise that they have significant responsibility to local and global societies beyond simply making profit. This means that there is now an increasing concern with the question of how corporations, and their employees, ought to behave, and this leads us to consider ethics as the appropriate theoretical and philosophical domain.I will bring into the debate two relatively recent approaches to ethics: Jurgen Habermas's discourse ethics (stemming from his critical theory); and the critical realist approach of Roy Bhaskar. These are interesting for several reasons: they both draw on traditional ethical theories, although different ones; they bring in innovations of practical relevance; and they both share an over-arching critical perspecti...

In order to evaluate Floridi's philosophy of information (PI) and correlative information ethics (IE) as potential frameworks for a global information and computing ethics (ICE), I review a range of important criticisms, defenses, and extensions of PI and IE, along with Floridi's responses to these, as gathered together in a recent special issue of Ethics and Information Technology. A revised and expanded version of PI and IE emerges here, one that brings to the foreground PI's status as a philosophical naturalism—one with both current application and important potential in the specific domains of privacy and information law. Further, the pluralism already articulated by Floridi in his PI is now more explicitly coupled with an ethical pluralism in IE that will be enhanced through IE's further incorporation of discourse ethics. In this form, PI and IE emerge as still more robust frameworks for a global ICE; in this form, however, they also profoundly challenge modern Western assumptions regarding reality, the self, and our ethical obligations.

This article examines two recent alternatives to the traditional conception of human rights as natural rights: the account of human rights found in discourse ethics and the ‘political conception’ of human rights influenced by the work of Rawls. I argue that both accounts have distinct merits and that they are not as opposed to one another as is sometimes supposed. At the same time, the discourse ethics account must confront a deep ambiguity in its own approach: are rights derived in a strong sense from the conditions of ‘communicative freedom’ or are they developed from the participants’ own reflection upon their ongoing and continuously changing practices and institutions? The political conception recently proposed by Joshua Cohen can, I argue, contribute to the resolution of this ambiguity, though not without some modifications of its own. Keywords: human rights; discourse ethics; The ‘political conception’ of rights; Seyla Benhabib; John Rawls; Rainer Forst; Michael Ignatieff; Thomas Pogge; Joshua Cohen (Published: 10 March 2009) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v2i1.1938

Journalists’ common sense, their everyday moral intuitions, offers a practical but flawed way of knowing right from wrong. But rather than discounting or dismissing this “naive everyday ethical knowledge,” which would rob journalism of its normative substance, we propose to rehabilitate it through a process of public justification. Grounded in aspects of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative ethics, we offer a model of press accountability that understands ethics as a process rather than an outcome. Our being-ethical-means-being-accountable theme emphasizes the role of eloquence, understood as the competence to argue in ways that advance common or shared interests, in an open and accessible discursive test of the validity of journalism's moral norms.

ARGUMENT QUALITY IN PUBLIC DELIBERATIONS Theorists and activists increasingly frame their preferred forms of politics as "deliberative democracy" (Dryzek, 1990, 2000; Gastil & Keith, 2005). Understanding citizen deliberation as political action is neither a novel idea nor exclusive to western political systems. For instance, excavations suggest that the earliest human civilizations had a language to describe people gathering together to make collective decisions. (1) Moreover, ample evidence from ancient Greek city-states support these earlier data (Ober, 1991) and, thereby, reinforce a tradition of politics via citizen deliberations. A precedent for community-based deliberation exists in the United States--during the 1930s, a government funded "American Forum" movement organized community discussions on a national scale (Keith, 2007). These histories, evident in language and organizational structures across cultures and over time, demonstrate a long-standing attraction to deliberative politics. "Deliberative democracy," a term coined in the 1980s (Dryzek, 2000, p. 2), is the linguistic hook that binds scholarship addressing the normative conditions and efficacy of discursive politics. What deliberation ought to be and what it should yield are questions that have generated a wide range of defining characteristics and outcomes. Barabas (2004) summarizes deliberative ideals as seeking consensus on a contested issue while simultaneously enlightening participants. Consensus and enlightenment align with a Habermasian notion of discourse ethics wherein the ideal speech situation consists of open participation, justification of assertions, consideration of the common good, respect for other participants and a rationally motivated consensus (Habermas, 1985; Steenbergen, Bachtiger, Sporndli, & Steiner, 2003). Contesting and amending such normative ideals has become something of a cottage industry in scholarship relating to argumentation. Sanders (1997), (2) a staunch skeptic of deliberative democracy, concedes that an outright rejection of deliberative politics seems to be counterintuitive. "A commitment to deliberation is, after all, a commitment to finding a way to address concerns, resolve disagreements, and overcome conflicts by offering arguments supported by reasons to our fellow citizens" (p. 347). Despite the appeal of deliberation, Sanders remains dissatisfied with the current state of deliberative theory-building, primarily because scholars have failed to justify their theories with "substantive or empirical" arguments from ordinary people--the people on whose behalf theorists have argued. These voices are largely absent in creating and testing theoretical claims. Without evidence to the contrary, Sanders holds that when people deliberate they often create counterproductive effects--most specifically, a further privileging of dominant voices. For Sanders, deliberative theorists should refocus their lofty goals and emphasize testimony-laden discussions with an intermediate goal of inclusive participation and mutual respect by the parties to deliberations. Although deliberative theorists have yet to embrace Sanders's (1997) vision of what ought to replace Habermas's ideal, increasingly they are committed to studying what happens when people attempt to make collective decisions. Steiner et al. (2004) frame contemporary research on deliberative democracy in this manner: "[T]he controversies surrounding the deliberative model cannot be resolved at the level of theoretical speculations and that research needs to go beyond illustrative anecdotes" (p. 42). Steiner et al. acknowledge that empirical research "cannot determine whether deliberation is a good thing in itself" (p. 42), yet it can serve as a "helping hand" in controversies involving democratic theory. Habermas (2006) seemingly concurs, in noting that whether deliberation contributes to "political will-formation and decision-making is, of course, an empirical question" (p. …

In this paper we suggest an alternative approach to ethics in social work: virtue ethics. We argue that Habermas's theory of communicative action and discourse ethics needs to be supplemented with virtue ethics to provide an account useful to social work. In these times, sensitivity to others is needed for social work to succeed as a profession interested in combating the complacency, self-interest and lack of compassion evident in cutbacks to social welfare programmes and the resultant concerns with outcomes and efficiencies that have all but obliterated care and compassion. We see in Habermas a furthering of Aristotelian and Thomist philosophy, most importantly with respect to his focus on emancipatory knowing—the critically reflective knower who knows self as the person doing the knowing. Habermas's distinction between values (objective), ethics (social) and morals (subjective) makes the province of emancipatory knowing (his epistemological theory) consistent with his moral theory—morality is personal.

This article will attempt to ‘provincialize’ or ‘decentre’ critical theory by looking at the development of critical discourses from within the Islamic and Sikh religious traditions. Although important theological, philosophical and historical differences exist between the two communities, Islamic and Sikh narratives share a rejection of the subordination of the religious to the political and thus potentially challenge the Westphalian order. However, in the case of the Sikh Qaum, no clear distinction between ‘nation’ and ‘religion’ is possible given the strong attachment to a territorially defined ancestral homeland. This article suggests that both critical Islamic and Sikh discourses, particularly those emanating from the diaspora, are potentially compatible with the ‘discourse ethics’ of critical theory. This is, however, conditional on the recognition of the universality of their beliefs, a position incompatible with the ‘thin’ cosmopolitanism of critical theory.

Utilitarianism has dominated media ethics for a century. For Mill, individual autonomy and neutrality are the foundations of his On Liberty and System of Logic, as well as his Utilitarianism. These concepts fit naturally with media ethics theory and professional practice in a democratic society. However, the weaknesses in utilitarianism articulated by Ross and others direct us at this stage to a dialogic ethics of duty instead. Habermas's discourse ethics, feminist ethics, and communitarian ethics are examples of duty ethics rooted in the dialogic relation that enable us to start over intellectually.

The work of Jurgen Habermas is both an example of discourse that has provoked oppositional standpoints, as well as at the same time purporting to establish and justify a framework that places discourse at the heart of morality. Morality, that is, with a capital M; morality conceived of in terms of the normativity that is found wherever we can ask what we ought to do. The claim that is embodied in Habermas's Critical Theory is that the contestation of norms in modern societies must be constrained by the demands of reason and its requirement of universalism. This manifests itself as a "Discourse Ethics," which is devoid of any substantive commitment to the "good life" and offers what are the minimal but rationally binding procedural rules that ought to govern the resolution of contested normative claims. In other words, providing certain "ideal standards" are attended to, we should encourage people to talk more when they are in disagreement with others. At one level, this conclusion—we need to talk more—mig...

In his recent article ‘Speech and Sensibility: Levinas and Habermas on the Constitution of the Moral Point of View’, Steven Hendley argues that Levinas’s preoccupation with language as ‘exposure’ to the ‘other’ provides an important corrective to Habermas’s focus on the ‘procedural’ aspects of communication. Specifically, what concerns Hendley is the question of moral motivation, and how Levinas, unlike Habermas, responds to this question by stressing the dialogical relation as one of coming ‘into proximity to the face of the other’ who possesses ‘the authority to command my consideration’. Hendley’s thesis is bold and provocative. However, it relies on too partial a reading of Levinas’s work. In this paper I argue that the sense in which Levinas thinks of ‘justifying oneself’ cannot be adequately understood in terms of an ‘outstretched field of questions and answers’. Rather, Levinas’s primary concern is to show how, prior to dialogue, the ‘I’ is constituted in existential guilt: the violence of...

This article introduces a critical survey of recent discussions of cosmopolitanism by elucidating a common core present in them and by providing a proposal for how that core can be best elaborated. Two theses are defended. The first is that an appropriate conception of cosmopolitanism must include three coordinates: a search for universal rights, sensitivity to contextual specificities, and autonomous empowerment of all individuals. A cosmopolitan stance framed by these conditions must be seen as a form of social criticism. The second thesis is that the practices of public deliberation recommended by the program of discourse ethics provide an ideal medium for the kind of discussion in which people enacting a critical cosmopolitan stance should engage, especially in view of the possible situational tensions between its three coordinates.

In what sense could discourse ethics be linked with normative problems raised by the ecological crisis? Even if Apel and Habermas have not really addressed this question extensively, and even if their position in moral philosophy seems to develop and reinforce a neo-Kantian anthropocentric point of view, one can find in their works some evidence for the possibility of connecting a dialogical view with an ecological one. In order to defend the philosophical interest in highlighting this possibility, this essay analyses Habermas' position concerning the moral and ontological status of animality in particular, and attempts to situate this position within the history of Critical Theory.

The concept of genre represents a meaningful pattern of communication, which has been applied in the information systems field. Genres are socially constructed: they may consequently be socially more or less acceptable or contested. This paper focuses on the concept of communicative genre and addresses the issue of how meta-communication processes guided by discursive-ethical principles can promote a rational and legitimate definition, design and structuring of genres. Such a meta-communication process has not yet been thoroughly discussed in relation to the concept of genre as a means for structuring (organizational) communication. This paper claims to make the following contributions: firstly, it provides a wider spectrum of discursive concepts for critically reflecting on and discursive evaluation of the content and structures of genres and genre instances. Secondly, it demonstrates how different kinds of meta-communications (ex ante, in-action, and ex post) can be used to legitimate genres in a manner compatible with the discourse ethics. It illustrates the discourse-ethical viewpoint concerning the legitimacy of genre structuring processes and thus, also, the legitimacy of resultant norms and contents of communication, especially in global contexts.

The concept of justice is central to a political activity such as planning. This is reflected in the initial influence of consequentialism, particularly utilitarian conceptualizations, in planning thought and more recently in the application of Rawls' notion of “justice as fairness” and Habermas' “discourse ethics”. However, contemporary normative planning theory has been vigorously criticized by studies which take as their starting point the material realities of planning practices. In this paper it is argued that notwithstanding the crucial contributions of Habermas and Rawls to political philosophy their constitutional level conceptualizations were never intended to be applied to the task of situated judgement associated with the highly contested decisions at the heart of the planning activity. Consequently, the issue for the planning community is not so much can the concepts of justice embodied in Rawls' “justice as fairness” or Habermas' “discourse ethics” be found in practice but could they...

This paper presents a substantivist construal of discourse ethics, which claims that we should see our engagement in public deliberation as expressing and elaborating a substantive commitment to basic moral ideas of solidarity, equality, and freedom. This view is different from Habermas’s standard formalist defence of discourse ethics, which attempts to derive the principle of discursive moral justification from primarily non‐moral presuppositions of rational argumentation as such. After explicating the difference between the substantivist and the formalist construal, I defend the former by showing that it is not only intuitively compelling, but also particularly well equipped for addressing four important objections recently levelled against discourse ethics and its political applications (Rawls’s concern that it lacks substantive guidelines, Gunnarsson’s challenge that it has not been proven to be superior to alternative moral conceptions such as utilitarianism, Scanlon’s complaint that it lack...

This paper analyzes three distinct modern articulations of the concept of political theology: the French restoration, Carl Schmitt, and Johann B. Metz. An analysis of their assessments of modernity and the Enlightenment show the role that “exception” or “interruption” has within their critique of modernity. Because of the consequences of the appeal to “exception” by Schmitt and National Socialism, the United Nations, seeking to prevent such use, underscored collective legitimacy in its charter and declarations about human rights. The appeal to “exception” and “singularity” emerges again today in both the political advocacy of pre-emption and in the anti-modern critique of Enlightenment rationality. The use of “exception” in the twentieth century challenges political theology to work out a more nuanced relation to the language of rights and the cosmopolitanism of its ethics and democratic discourse.

(2004). From Ethnocentrism to Realism: Can Discourse Ethics Bridge the Gap? Journal of the Philosophy of Sport: Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 122-141.

A critical discourse analysis of The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity demonstrates that Habermas's discourse on modernity is theoretische Fiktion (a term Freud used to describe a given theory for which no evidence can be found and no arguments validated). Theatrical narrative strategies from drama are identified that not only organise the logic of the text, but also position readers. The choice of mise en scene—the Oedipal cross‐roads where older and younger protagonists meet in conflict—is seen to position readers as mere spectators. The choice of the narrative trope of the romance of lost opportunity (the road open but not taken) is not merely illustrative, but necessary for the claim that Habermas has redeemed the enlightenment project. Habermas (1984, 100–101) defines the redemptive characteristics of the enlightenment project and modernity. It is a project that is not “post”, but continues to be supported by discourse divided into the categories analytic/scientific, moral/interpretive and aesthet...

In this paper the claim is made that the new turn to ethics brings about a need to develop a toolbox for practical ethics that makes ethical advice amenable to quality assurance and democratic transparency. This is of great importance when ethical advice is given to policy-making bodies. The mechanism of providing ethical advice through the establishment of an ethics committee is discussed. An analysis of what would follow from conceiving of the work of such a committee as an exercise in discourse ethics (just one among several ethical tools). A number of critical questions and criticisms of ethics committees are presented and discussed. The paper argues that much needs to be done to develop a toolbox for practical ethics of science and technology. If efforts in this direction are neglected, one risks basic doubts about the legitimacy of ethical advice and people will come to see ethics as a mere smokescreen or passing fashion.

According to the principles derived from his theory of discourse ethics, Habermas's model of deliberative democracy is justified only if the public is capable of making political decisions that advance the common good. Recent public‐opinion research demonstrates that the public's overwhelming ignorance of politics precludes it from having such capabilities, even if radical measures were taken to thoroughly educate the public about politics or to increase the salience of politics in their lives.

In this essay the author examines the burgeoning industry of ecotourism, analyzing definitions of "ecotourism" and exploring a number of compelling issues raised by the recent trend in worldwide tourism. She then examines three sample codes of ecotourism: one site-specific (Antarctic Traveller's Code), one from a major environmental group (National Audubon Society), and one developed by a consultant for a travel research firm (Code for Leisure Destination Development). The presuppositions, value, and limitations of these codes are then analyzed. On the basis of this analysis, the author proceeds to a discussion of the frameworks for negotiating discourses about ecotourism. Stark argues that the limitations detected in the sample codes of ethics for ecotourism would be fruitfully addressed by Jurgen Habermas's discourse ethics augmented by the feminist ethical and political theories of Seyla Benhabib who draws on the work of Hannah Arendt. While bracketing the debates surrounding the justification of Haber...

Central to teaching is a grand dichotomy: public and private. Children need the protection of privacy to form their own identities: they try out new roles and need to be sheltered from some consequences of these attempts so that they feel confident to keep trying. Forming an identity, however, is also a public concern: the very roles that children try out have been defined by communities. Teachers are given special responsibility to determine public and private for children, but little guidance in making these judgements. Following Habermas, I contend that deciding public and private is especially difficult for teachers, because the bureaucratization of society in general and schooling in particular has eroded distinctions between private and public. I suggest that Habermas's discourse ethics with its typology of pragmatic, ethical and moral discourses each aimed at different goals--and requiring different conditions of communication--can help teachers create common and uncommon worlds for their students.