ABSTRACT
The work of Jürgen Habermas places discourse at the heart of morality. The claim that is embodied in Habermas’ 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 ethical commitments and offers what are the minimal but rationally binding procedural rules for the resolution of contested normative claims. If this implies that we need to talk more, it is a modest conclusion. However, there is more to this framework than the surface banality of its conclusion might suggest, and this is best appreciated by considering the more philosophical justifi cations that Habermas provides. The philosophical context that makes Habermas’ work so interesting and relevant, both theoretically and practically, lies in the way the “communicative solution” is presented as being the only way of engaging with, and overcoming, the philosophical problems that a “discourse of modernity” has revealed.
