Habermas and the Neoaristotelians (Athens 2006)

Habermas and the Neoaristotelians. The Ethics of Discourse in Jürgen Habermas and the Challenge of Neoaristotelianism (Athens 2006)



CONTENTS 

Acknowledgements ……..13

Introduction ……………..15

 

PART ONE

1. NEOARISTOTELIANISM: ETHICS AND POLITICS  …. 41

1. “Old conservatives”, “young conservatives”, “neoconservatives”………………………………. 47
2. Neoaristotelianism and Neohistoricism ……….... 60
3. The ethics of discourse between “moral”

      and “ethical” questions…….……………………. 75

2. NEOARISTOTELIANISM AS A PHILOSOPHY

      OF THE WORLDVIEWS   …………………………….. 79

1. Virtue and autonomy: why the program of the

       enlightenment “had to fail”?……………………. 79

2. Justice and virtue: the rationality of traditions in Alasdair MacIntyre  ………………………………………... 94
3. Authenticity and autonomy in modern ethics  …. 102
4. Towards a “universalist theory of the good”

       in Charles Taylor …………………………………112

5. The weltanschauunglich character of Neoraristotelianism: Moralität and Sittlichkeit  …………………………120

3. NEOARISTOTELIANISM AND NEOCONSERVATISM: THE CRITIQUE OF JÜRGEN HABERMAS..………………..133

1. John Rawls’ theory of justice and Jürgen Habermas’

      controversy with communitarian

      Neoaristotelianism ………………………………….133

2. Neoaristotelianism and conventional moral

      consciousness ……………………………………….136

3. Neoaristotelianism as the

      “ideology of phronesis”  ……………………………145

 

PART TWO

1. MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION (1983): JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ CONFRONTATION WITH MORAL SKEPTICISM  …………………………………………….149

1. Neoaristotelianism as the“salvatory farewell to philosophy” ………………...150
2. The seven rounds of confrontation with moral skepticism …………………… 154
3. The ethics of discourse faced up against the reconstructive sciences: Laurence Kohlberg’s moral psychology …165
4. The critique of moral formalism and the  “problem of application” ………… 175

2. KLAUS GÜNTHER: THE CRITERION OF ANGEMESSENHEIT IN THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE …………………………… 184 

1. Action, normative principle, and situation in the ethics of discourse … 184
2. “Discourses of justification” and “discourses of application”  …..…… 188
3. Angemessenheit and the “problem of application”................................ 193

3. REMARKS ON THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE (1991): JUSTIFICATION AND APPLICATION IN JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ REVISED ETHICS OF DISCOURSE …………………………………………… 198

a. “Moral discourses” versus “ethical discourses”: the priority of the “right” over the “good”   …………………………………… 199

b. The ethics of discourse between Kant and Hegel  ……... 210

c. From the discursive theory of ethics to the

discursive theory of law  ……………………………………. 220

Excursus: The “problem of application” in Karl-Otto Apel’s

ethics of discourse  ………………………………………….. 227

PART THREE

1.      CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE........... 235

I.                   Albrecht Wellmer  .......................................235

a.      The “negativist” orientation of the ethics of discourse  ....... 236

b.      The non-applicability of the ethics of discourse  ................... 245

c.       Jürgen Habermas and the ideal of communitarian freedom...255

II. Seyla Benhabib ......... 259

a.      Towards an “interactive post-metaphysical universalism” ...... 259

b.      Hegel’s shadow over the ethics of discourse ....... 265

2. THE “PROBLEM OF APPLICATION” BETWEEN NEOARISTOTELIAN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE ETHICS OF DISCOURSE ...... 271

a.      Intersubjectivity and consensus  ........... 271

b.      Hermeneutics versus critique of ideology: the heritage of a controversy .... 297

c.       Hermeneutic understanding and application  ..... 306

d.      Moral judgment as phronesis: Kant and Aristotle ..... 319

Conclusion    ...........330

APPENDIX ONE

Stelios Virvidakis, The Metaethical horizons of Jürgen Habermas’ ethics of discourse  .....343

  

APPENDIX TWO

Konstantine Kavoulakos,  The self-overcoming of formalism in Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics    ....... 375

BIBLIOGRAPHY    ....... 385

INDEX OF NAMES ........ 407

INDEX OF CONCEPTS ......411