Discourse and Democracy

Stephanie.Geary

Description

Discourse and Democracy offers a variety of perspectives by an international group of scholars on Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms. The collection presents not just a summary of Habermas's own views, but locates him with respect to modern and contemporary moral, political, and legal theory. The result is a volume useful to those first approaching Habermas's thought as well as those already familiar with its general outlines.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Initial Assessments of Between Facts and Norms

1. Deliberative Democracy and the Limits of Liberalism
Kenneth Baynes

2. Discourse and Democracy: The Formal and Informal Bases of Legitimacy in Between Facts and Norms
William Rehg and James Bohman

3. Between Radicalism and Resignation: Democratic Theory in Habermas's Between Facts and Norms
William E. Scheuerman

II. Historical and Comparative Perspectives

4. Liberties and Popular Sovereignty: On Habermas's Reconstruction of the System of Rights
Ingeborg Maus

5. Habermas, Hegel, and the Concept of Law
Andrew Buchwalter

6. Rawls and Habermas
Hauke Brunkhorst

III. Further Assessments and Wider Implications

7. Law, Solidarity, and the Tasks of Philosophy
Peter Dews

8. Rational Politics? An Exploration of the Fruitfulness of the Discursive Concept of Democracy
Geert Munnichs

9. The Disappearance of Discourse Ethics in Habermas's Between Facts and Norms
Matthias Kettner

10. The Erosion of Our Value Spheres: The Ways in which Society Copes with Scientific, Moral, and Ethical Uncertainty
René von Schomberg

IV. Interview

11. A Conversation about Questions of Political Theory
Jürgen Habermas

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791487921
• Langue: English

Extrait

This page intentionally left blank.

Discourse and Democracy

SUNY series in Social and Political Thought Kenneth Baynes, editor

Discourse and Democracy

Essays on Habermas’sBetween Facts and Norms

EDITED BY

René von Schomberg and Kenneth Baynes

S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2002 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY, 12207

Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Patrick Durocher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Discourse and democracy : Essays on Habermas’s Between Facts and Norms / edited by René von Schomberg and Kenneth Baynes. p. cm. — (SUNY series in social and political thought) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7914–5497–5 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0–7914–5498–3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Habermas, Jürgen. Faktizität und Geltung. 2. Sociological jurisprudence. 3. Democracy—Social aspects. 4. Rule of law—Social aspects. I. Schomberg, René von. II. Baynes, Kenneth. III. Series.

L372.H333 D57 2002 340´.115—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002021021

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Contents

I. Initial Assessments ofBetween Facts and Norms

1. Deliberative Democracy and the Limits of Liberalism Kenneth Baynes

2. Discourse and Democracy: The Formal and Informal Bases of Legitimacy inBetween Facts and Norms William Rehg and James Bohman

3. Between Radicalism and Resignation: Democratic Theory in Habermas’sBetween Facts and Norms William E. Scheuerman

II. Historical and Comparative Perspectives

4. Liberties and Popular Sovereignty: On Habermas’s Reconstruction of the System of Rights Ingeborg Maus

5. Habermas, Hegel, and the Concept of Law Andrew Buchwalter

6. Rawls and Habermas Hauke Brunkhorst

III. Further Assessments and Wider Implications

7. Law, Solidarity, and the Tasks of Philosophy Peter Dews

v

vii

1

15

3

1

61

89

129

153

165

vi

Contents

8. Rational Politics? An Exploration of the Fruitfulness of the Discursive Concept of Democracy Geert Munnichs

9. The Disappearance of Discourse Ethics in Habermas’s Between Facts and Norms Matthias Kettner

10. The Erosion of Our Value Spheres: The Ways in which Society Copes with Scientific, Moral, and Ethical Uncertainty René von Schomberg

IV. Interview

11. A Conversation about Questions of Political Theory Jürgen Habermas

Contributors

Index

185

201

219

241

259

261

Acknowledgments

The editors are grateful for permission to publish the following articles.

Peter Dews “Law, Solidarity and the Tasks of Philosophy,”Theoria88 (1996).

Jürgen Habermas, “A Conversation about Questions in Political Theory,” in A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997).

Ingeborg Maus, “Popular Sovereignty and Liberal Rights,”Cardozo Law Review17 (1998).

William Rehg and James Bohman, “Discourse and Democracy: The Formal and Informal Bases of Legitimacy inBetween Facts and Norms,” Journal of Political Philosophy4 (1996).

William Scheuerman, “Between Radicalism and Realism: Critical Reflections onBetween Facts and Norms,” inHabermas: Critical Essays. Peter Dews, ed. (New York: Blackwell, 1999).

vii

This page intentionally left blank.

Introduction

Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory Law and Democracyis Jürgen Habermas’s most important work since the publi- cation of hismagnum opus,The Theory of Communicative Action. In it he returns directly to questions in political and legal theory—in particular, the character of the liberal democratic state in capitalist society—that shaped his first and highly controversial book,The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. In this new study, however, he is able to pursue his earlier interest in the dynamic relations among law, politics, and society not only from the perspective of his general theory of communicative action but also with the wisdom and hindsight of thirty years of further analysis and reflec- tion. The result is a wide-ranging and deeply informed account of the limits and possibilities of a democratic politics that attempts neither to avoid nag- ging questions about political legitimacy nor to become hopelessly utopian in the face of empirical realities. The chapters contained in this volume offer, from a variety of different perspectives and addressing a number of different issues, an initial assessment of Habermas’s most recent proposal. Even for those already familiar with the scholarly breadth of Habermas’s theory of communicative action, the range of disciplines drawn upon inBetween Facts and Normscan be overwhelming. He moves seem- ingly without effort among the philosophy of language, social theory, and political theory, as well as among debates in legal and constitutional thought—American and European—and among interpretations of the devel- opment of modern law and its relation to the idea of democracy and demo- cratic legitimacy. Though we cannot attempt to summarize Habermas’s project in any detail here—see the chapters in part I—, it may be helpful to point out that one of Habermas’s basic aims is to remind us of the insepara- ble (conceptual) connections between the rule of law (Rechtsstaat) and the idea of democracy or, as he puts it, to show that “the rule of law cannot be had or maintained without radical democracy” (xlii). Hence, interpretations of the Constitution that see it as simply a limitation or constraint on the idea of (popular) sovereignty and interpretations of (popular) democracy that do

1