ABSTRACT

This chapter shows how Karl-Otto Apel’s discourse ethics may be seen as a moral theory that not only discerned and anticipated the critique of modernity by postmoderns, but also formulated an alternative that navigates between the Scylla of relativism and the Charybdis of foundationalism. Apel’s work can be described as the synthesis of three of the most important philosophical currents of twentieth century philosophy. While Apel’s context was post-World War II ravaged Europe, one poised before the dual abysses of decisionistic subjectivism and value neutral scientism, Enrique Dussel’s context was an underdeveloped, anthropologically, economically and politically stunted, colonized and exploited Latin America. If Apel’s quest for a planetary macro-ethics led him to postulate the need for the growth in a planetary public sphere in which many international organizations may adjudicate on world problems, Dussel’s similar quest has led him to discover the structural roots of the growing rift between First and Third World.