Kant, Hegel, and Habermas: Does Hegel's Critique of Kant Apply to Discourse Ethics?

Abstract

He also accepts the cogency of Hegel's criticisms of Kant. He rejects, however, the idea that Hegel's critique applies to discourse ethics. After a brief exposition of discourse ethics, Habermas identifies what he understands to be the key points of similarity and difference between his theory and Kant's. Then he explains the degree to which four of Hegel's most trenchant criticisms of Kant apply to discourse ethics. 3 He claims, "Hegel's objections apply less to the reformulations of Kantian ethics itself than to a number of resulting problems that discourse ethics cannot be expected to resolve in a single stroke." 4 Habermas argues that the problems with discourse ethics do not stem from its justification but rather its application. He professes a firm belief in the ability of moral argumentation to produce a political situation in which the competing aims of individual rights and solidarity are realized.The general aim of this essay is to respond to Habermas and to reexamine the Hegelian idea that the issues of justification and application cannot really be separated. In what follows, I will review the similarities that Habermas acknowledges between discourse ethics and Kant's moral philosophy. Second, I will argue that the differences that Habermas sees between himself and Kant are inessential. Habermas' rethinking of the universalist project does not move it beyond Kant in any fundamental way. Finally, I will argue that discourse ethics, despite Habermas' protests, is just as susceptible to Hegelian critique as Kant's moral philosophy. Habermas asserts that U bridges the gaps between the interests of the participants in a moral discourse. The various normative validity claims introduced by participants in a moral discourse can be redeemed only through this general rule.Another feature that discourse ethics and Kant's practical philosophy share is an emphasis on the cognitive dimension of morality. A moral theory is cognitivist if it sets forth an explicit principle of justification (e.g. the C.I., or principle U). It must provide an answer to the question of why one moral norm is better than some other norm which conflicts with it. Habermas contends that justification of moral norms is analogous to the justification process that goes on in the natural and social sciences when truth claims are made. 9The participant in moral argumentation must seek to discursively redeem his claim of normative rightness. He must provide reasons for his claim and open it to public scrutiny. Habermas is careful, however, to observe a strict separation between the normative and theoretical spheres, which avoids the KANT, HEGEL, AND HABERMAS 65 reduction of ethics to science. He sees such a reduction as characteristic of intuitionsim and value ethics. 10He explains this separation into spheres by claiming that theoretical discourse examines truth claims about the world, while normative discourse investigates claims about the lightness of our intersubjectivly constructed social arrangements.Habermas division follows from Kant's s...

Social freedom in a global world: Axel Honneth's and Seyla Benhabib's reconsiderations of a Hegelian perspective on justice

“…While discourse theory opens the understanding of immanent critique towards an intersubjective conception of reason, it involves problems that can be addressed by a reformulation of the “Hegelian objection” (Benhabib, , p. 297; see also Miller, , p. 78). Benhabib's critique proceeds along three points that parallel the Hegelian critique of Kant; namely, the principle of universalizability, the neglect of institutional preconditions, and an inadequate moral psychology.…”