하버마스의 담론윤리학(Diskursethik)의 타당성에 관한 일 고찰

Abstract

J. Habermas wants to justify his discourse-ethics in the post- traditional horizon of the modern society. He tries to draw the validity for the discourse-ethics just from the repression-free communication between the subjects without any metaphysical or transcendental assumptions and presuppositions. This approach can give openness to the discourse-ethics as a moral theory. That is, the subjects need not give up their ethical ideals and value orientations in order to agree to a moral theory while they discuss the validity claims of a moral theory. They can constitute a moral theory by themselves and that openly. He, however, depends on the argumentative presuppositions, which can be drawn from the structure of the communicative actions, in order to justify the principle of universalization as the key principle of his discourse-ethics. This raises some critics because it demands that the argumentative presuppositions should be the only resources for the justification of the principle of universalization. They suggest that the principle of universalization should be changed so that it can be successfully justified on the basis of the argumentative presuppositions. So, it seems inevitable that Habermas, who is not willing to change his principle of universalization as the key principle of his moral theory, depends on the action-theoretical way of justification rather than on the argumentation-theoretical way of justification. Critics suggest that he can keep it on the former, not on the latter. But He does not give up the argumentation-theoretical way for the justification of the principle of universalization because of the theoretical consistency. For this reason, his discourse-ethics cannot make use of most of the moral potential, which is included and developed in the communicative actions of the subjects.