Abstract
In this article I argue that Jürgen Habermas’ notion of morality (moral norms) has more in common with Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’ as a ‘ sittlich’ relation – understood as a socially integrative force – rather than Kant’s supreme principle of personal morality. I show that Habermas and Hegel, each in his own way, make a distinction between morality and ethics. However, I make the case that Habermas’ conception of ‘morality’ incorporates aspects of Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’, while Habermas’ conception of ‘ethical’ – referring to individual and group conceptions of the good life – is a remedy to the shortcomings in Hegel’s overly unified ethical life. I offer an alternative reading of Habermas’ principle of morality, which I suggest should be read as his attempt to provide a binding process to set up the norms that ought to condition a modern political community understood as a civil association.
Introduction
One of the most pressing challenges facing contemporary western democracies is how to address the fact of value pluralism, that is, disagreements between incommensurate ways of life over fundamental values, beliefs and social practices. The processes of globalization and post-colonial diaspora have led to greater interdependence of cultural groupings within and across western societies, and have weakened conventional markers of national and political identity. A key task is to identify appropriate mechanisms of social cohesion, which on the one hand provide a socially integrative force to unite citizens into a shared communal framework, and on the other hand facilitate individual and group conceptions of the good life. In liberal theory this challenge has been addressed through the public/private distinction: in public we share a basic set of rights and duties and in the private sphere we pursue our individual conceptions of the good life (see, for example, Rawls, 1971). However, the rise of religious fundamentalism and the increase in terrorist attacks such as the events of 11 September 2001 in the USA and the July 2005 bombings in London suggest that this distinction is insufficient for addressing questions of value pluralism. These instances – along with others such as the killing of abortion providers in the USA – reveal the inability of liberal secularism to placate deeply felt tensions within western societies. In fact, they expose the pretensions of ‘secular’ constitutions because the very activity of individuals or groups raising personal/religious issues in the public sphere undermines the force and legitimacy of so-called ‘impartial’ liberal constitutions to bind diverse constituencies to a communal framework of identification.
The Rawlsian emphasis on an overlapping constitutional consensus, communitarian appeals to ‘tradition’ and the poststructuralists’ emphasis on the ‘politics of difference’ all seek to account for this contemporary context of value pluralism. However, these perspectives are insufficient to the task because (respectively) they seek to exclude moral discussion from the public sphere and focus too much on cultural homogeneity, or conversely focus exclusively on cultural ‘difference’ and neglect to provide a process of social cohesion by which different groups/individuals can adhere to a common set of shared values. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, have focused on the role of deliberation and increased participation in the public sphere as a means to find consensus on issues such as abortion (see, for example, Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). However, commentators have faulted deliberative democrats for reducing political questions to moral ones (see, for example, Hardin, 1999). For instance, Chantal Mouffe has criticized Jürgen Habermas for his Kantian-inspired conception of ‘universal morality’, which she argues is ‘incompatible with recognizing the deeply pluralist character of the world and the irreconcilable conflict of values’ (Mouffe, 2000: 86, 92). On Mouffe’s reading, Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ precludes the possibility of healthy political contestation, and she is not alone in this interpretation of Habermas (see Mouffe, 2005: 122; see also Benhabib, 1987: 77–96). In this article, I take odds with this reading of Habermas and I show that his notion of ‘morality’ is able to provide a theoretical basis for the common bond necessary in a pluralist society. Contrary to the claims of Mouffe and others, I argue that Habermas’ conception of political ‘morality’ enables contrasting ethico-political ways of life to practise their beliefs while at the same time providing a mechanism of social cohesion, thereby facilitating an inclusive and vibrant multicultural society. Indeed, my interpretation of Habermas’ notion of the ‘moral’ differs significantly from other commentators. As I read it, Habermas’ conception of political ‘morality’ refers not to an abstract rational principle of individual conduct but rather to a civic bond, that is, a republican concord on a mode of conduct to be adhered to by all members of the political community, which creates the space (in civil society) for the pursuit of individual and group conceptions of the good life and for negotiations and (partial) agreements on controversial issues.
Habermas presents his theory of ‘discourse ethics’ as taking orientation from the formal, abstract and universal character of Kant’s categorical imperative (Habermas, 1993: 1). Many commentators have emphasized that discourse ethics is ‘strongly Kantian in its orientation’ (Blaug, 1999: xiii). 1 For example, Thomas McCarthy says that Habermas’ ‘idea of a “discourse ethics”’ is indebted to Kant’s Foundation to the Metaphysics of Morals and ‘involves a procedural reformulation of the Categorical Imperative’ (McCarthy, 1994: 44). In this article, I challenge this conventional reading of discourse ethics as a reconstruction of Kantian moral theory and of Habermas as a latter-day Kantian. 2 By way of contrast, I offer an innovative reading of Habermas’ theory of discourse ethics that situates him close to the critical republican tradition of thought, but in a manner that is sensitive to pluralism. 3 My interpretation of Habermas’ Hegelian-inspired notion of ‘discourse ethics’ provides a framework to address the complexities of contemporary pluralism without turning to a monistic or fixed conception of morality. Over the course of this article I show that the ‘moral’ dimension of Habermas’ theory of discourse ethics is located at the level of providing a civic morality and is thus concerned with constitutional matters rather than moral judgements on everyday policies (see Gauthier, 1993; Estlund, 1993). 4 If the moral principle is read as a criterion for democratic legitimacy and the moral norms that stem from it as a negotiated sittlich relation that is democratically decided, then the charges of proceduralism and formalism are overcome. In addition, I make the case that Habermas’ notion of morality provides a critical republican tool by which to set up norms that ought to constitute the civil conditions of a modern political community. This is a relationship between citizens based on the mutual recognition of common norms to be observed in performing self-chosen actions. This interpretation makes Habermas’ moral–ethical and legal–ethical distinctions valuable resources from which to theorize the basis of a contemporary multicultural and pluralist community. 5
I start this article by outlining the key terms ‘morality’ ( Moralität) and ethics ( Sittlichkeit) as they have been developed by Kant and Hegel. I show that Habermas does not use the term ‘morality’ as either a personal morality or a maxim to be applied in a mechanical manner. This is achieved by showing the close proximity of discourse ethics with Hegel’s political philosophy and demonstrating that Habermas uses the term ‘morality’ as a form of ‘cultural knowledge’ and not as a Kantian ‘good in itself’ (Habermas, 1996a: 106–7; Kant, 1998: 8). Then I examine Habermas’ attempts to defend his project of discourse ethics against Hegel’s critique of Kant. Following this, I demonstrate the similarities and differences between Habermas’ and Hegel’s respective distinctions between morality and ethical life. Here, I show that Habermas’ use of the term morality shares important similarities with Hegel’s notion of a sittlich relation or ethical life, that is, as a binding social force rather than a Kantian abstract and formulaic notion of a self-legislative ‘rational’ principle. I also demonstrate that Habermas’ conception of the ‘ethical’ – which refers to individual and group conceptions of the good life – is a remedy to the shortcomings in Hegel’s overly unified conception of ethical life. This provides a framework for negotiating contentious issues such as abortion in contemporary pluralist societies, but does not seek to prescribe a consensus on these issues. In the penultimate section, I delineate Habermas’ understanding of modern politics and demonstrate that he uses the term morality synonymously with civil norms. I show that for Habermas morality refers to the civil conditions to be observed in performing one’s conduct and not an action performed by a person for the sake of duty or to express what Kant calls a ‘good will’ (Kant, 1998: 7). This brings him close to the concerns of republican thinkers such as Michael Oakeshott. 6 I conclude the article with the suggestion that Habermas’ notion of morality offers an alternative way of theorizing the conditions of the modern political community, which avoids the shortcomings both of the liberal and of the communitarian justifications.
Discourse ethics: between Moralität and Sittlichkeit
In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle draws no distinction between ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ (Aristotle, 1976; Rasmussen, 1990: 65). This is because in ancient Greece ethics was tied to tradition and to a shared vision of customary life that provided the necessary practical conduct for citizens to participate in the polis. 7 However, following Kant it is typical for modern political theorists to differentiate between the terms morality and ethics. In the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals Kant sought to establish the ‘supreme principle of morality’, that is, the categorical imperative, which is ‘Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law’(Kant, 1998: 5, 31). He claimed to have discovered a formal moral principle of action that is universal in its application, unconditionally necessary, and transcendental in the sense that it is valid or morally binding for all rational beings irrespective of their historical or cultural context. The categorical imperative is a subjective principle of action that provides an individual with a procedural rule to follow in order for his or her action to be regarded as ‘moral’. For Kant, an action is deemed moral only if the motive or ‘will’ behind it is ‘good’ (Kant, 1998: 8). He says, a ‘good will is not good because [of] what it effects or accomplishes’ but rather it is good because of ‘its volition’, which he says is ‘good in itself’ and ‘regarded for itself’ (Kant, 1998: 8).
In Elements of the Philosophy of Right Hegel makes a distinction between the Kantian notion of ‘morality’ ( Moralität) and what he calls Sittlichkeit; both of which are central to his teleological theory of history for which the goal is the attainment of freedom (Hegel, 1991: 135–42). Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’ ( Sittlichkeit) is a ‘distinctive contribution to [modern] moral philosophy’ and is introduced to accommodate the principle of subjectivity (individualism), which he sees as central to modern politics (Knowles, 2002: 221). Hegel agrees with Kant that morality is a necessary development of reason towards the realization of freedom. However, he is critical of Kant’s notion of individual morality as an ‘abstract formal notion of moral obligation’ (Taylor, 1975: 376). For Hegel, ‘ Sittlichkeit’ or ethical life refers to the rules that govern the conduct of communally situated individuals (Hegel, 1991: 195). It is not an ‘abstract’ morality, but rather it is a ‘general mode of behaviour’ that appears as ‘custom’ and is embedded in the concrete historical practices of a community (ibid.). In other words, for Hegel, it is only in the concrete community of the ‘state’ that individuals can fulfil and realize their moral obligations, which are ‘based on established norms and uses’ (Taylor, 1975: 376). As Charles Taylor puts it, for Hegel ‘ Moralität’ is an ‘obligation to be realized’ whereas a ‘ sittlich obligation’ exists in a community as a whole, and an individual’s ‘fulfilment of these obligations is what sustains them’ and the ‘norms of a society’s public are the content of Sittlichkeit’ (ibid.). In Hegel’s view, it is in the realm of ethical life ( Sittlichkeit) – composed of the family, civil society and state – that the subject realizes and attains freedom. Furthermore, for Hegel, Sittlichkeit finds its fullest expression in the state or the ‘public life’ of a ‘politically organized community’ and not simply in the ‘particularism’ of the family and civil society (ibid.: 387). For Hegel, the state ‘expresses in its institutions and practices the most important ideas and norms which its citizens recognise and by which they define their identity’ (ibid.: 388). What is significant about Hegel’s conception of Sittlichkeit is that it refers to the norms or obligations an individual has to a specific socio-historical community and is not an abstract individual obligation like Kant’s notion of morality.
In 1983 Habermas published ‘Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification’ (Habermas, 1990: 43–115). This essay seeks to justify a criterion though which the validity of ‘contested’ norms can be judged. Habermas’ project of discourse ethics sets up a ‘procedure’ to facilitate the ‘impartial’ adjudication between ‘competing’ norms as a way by which to mediate the interactions between culturally diverse individuals and groups (ibid.: 122; 1996a: 108–9). The key idea of this project is expressed in the discourse principle, which states that ‘only those norms can claim validity that could meet with the acceptance of all concerned in practical discourse’ governed by relations of reciprocity and symmetry (Habermas, 1998: 41). Habermas says there are a variety of ways of operationalizing the discourse principle depending on the issue in question. When dealing with the ‘subject matter’ of ‘morality’ and justifying ‘moral norms’ the discourse principle ‘takes the form of a universalizing principle’, whereas it is transformed into the ‘democratic principle’ to address legal and political questions (Habermas, 1996a: 109; 1998: 46). Habermas’ moral principle is the principle of universalization, which states that a ‘norm is valid when the foreseeable consequences and side effects of its [the norm’s] general observance for the interests and value-orientations of each individual could be jointly accepted by all concerned without coercion’ (Habermas, 1990: 82; 1998: 42). 8
The term ‘moral’ is traditionally used in contemporary political theory with fidelity to the Kantian conception of individual action understood as Moralität. Among theorists of deliberative democracy there is a divide between those commentators that use and read the term morality in Habermas’ work as some form of Kantian ‘moral validity’ and those that read it as a conception of political legitimacy. The ambiguous nature of the term morality in discourse ethics is widely acknowledged by commentators on Habermas’ work. For example, Rehg refers to this distinction as the difference between the ‘everyday use of the term’ moral and the ‘broader’ ‘political’ reading of the term morality (1994: 11, 12). The former reading is championed by thinkers such as Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson who in their own account of deliberative democracy use the term moral to refer to individual moral judgments. They understand conflicts over policy in sensitive areas such as abortion as conflicts over personal morality (see Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, 1999). Similarly, Seyla Benhabib’s use of the term morality is within the boundaries of the former interpretation. She argues that ‘the basic principle of discourse ethics together with the normative constraints of argumentation can serve as “substantive tests” of our moral intuitions’. Benhabib makes the case that the term moral in discourse ethics ‘if interpreted correctly could help our [individual] moral intuitions’ (Benhabib, 1990: 346–7).
However, other commentators have remarked that Habermas’ Kantian-inspired moral theory of discourse ethics does not ‘yield determinate solutions to moral problems’ (White, 1988: 84). For example, Agnes Heller has made the case that when Habermas uses the term ‘moral norms’ he actually means socio-political norms. She maintains that discourse ethics is not concerned to ‘enlighten people in an everyday setting[s] about the fundamental character’ of their individual choices (Heller, 1984: 5–17). On the contrary, Heller says it is a procedure for validating norms and best viewed as an up-to-date version of ‘social contract theories’ (ibid.: 12). Along the same lines, Jean Cohen’s reading supports this interpretation. She argues that discourse ethics is best seen as a ‘political ethics’ or a principle of ‘democratic legitimacy’ (Cohen, 1990: 86). Likewise, Simone Chambers says that Habermas’ principle of universalization ‘does not make sense as a criterion for moral, but rather as a criterion for democratic legitimacy’ (Chambers, 1996: 145). I agree with Heller, Cohen and Chambers that in Habermas’ work discourse ethics operates as a form of political legitimacy. However, they do not elaborate on this important insight sufficiently and they continue to situate discourse ethics broadly within Kantian moral theory. I have already stated that in my reading Habermas’ project of ‘discourse ethics’ offers an account of the constituting principles of a modern political community understood as a mode of conduct to be adhered to by all members, as a kind of civic duty; this is in the form of a Sittlichkeit relation and expressed in his notion of the ‘moral’.
Indeed it is my contention that Habermas’ theory of discourse ethics blurs the distinction between Moralität and Sittlichkeit. His post-conventional notion of ‘morality’ resembles a sittlich relation, that is, a collective mode of conduct rather than a personal conception of morality. This is not, however, a concrete Sittlichkeit tied (as it is in Hegel’s theory) to a unified ethical community, rather for Habermas morality refers to the communal obligations (or ethos) recognized to be binding by diverse groups of citizens in the pursuit of their own particular conceptions of the good life. In other words, moral action in discourse ethics is not motivated by respect for an abstract universal law, but rather by recognizing and adhering to reciprocal conditions of action within a political community. Morality, for Habermas, is not about finding firm agreements in policy (for example, in sensitive areas such as abortion and contemporary medical ethics). This is a matter to be decided by politically active individuals and groups steering the decisions made by political representatives in a particular direction. ‘Morality’ is instead a question of working towards creating a civic ethos, which enables people to identify with each other in acknowledging certain conditions of acting in pursuing their own conception of the good. Moreover, Habermas’ critique of ‘cosmopolitan’ theorists – like David Held, for example – reveals that he understands morality as a shared ethos. He says that a global ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ is impossible because it would lack the ‘civic solidarity’ or the sittlich relation that is present in the nation-state (Habermas, 2001: 107, 108). This is not to deny the cosmopolitan aspirations of discourse ethics altogether, rather it is to acknowledge that for Habermas morality is one element in the wider ‘ethical–political self-understanding of citizens’ in particular communities (ibid.). In other words, for Habermas cosmopolitan principles must be embedded in the concrete ethical life of a democratic polity. This becomes clearer if we consider Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral theory and Habermas’ response to it.
Habermas’ defence of discourse ethics against Hegel’s critique of Kant
It is not surprising that many commentators situate discourse ethics within the parameters of Kantian moral theory, especially given Habermas’ explicit association with Kant’s deontological framework and with Karl-Otto Apel’s ‘Kantian’-style basis of communicative ethics (Habermas, 1990: 14; Habermas, 1993: 1; Apel, 1980). However, in this section I look more closely at Habermas’ explicit engagement with Kant and Hegel and I argue that he offers a third way between these two positions. Like Kant’s supreme principle of morality Habermas’ principle of universalization provides participants in discourse with a ‘just’ rule to follow to validate shared norms (Habermas, 1996a: 107). He says that he aims to move ‘beyond the perspective of a particular culture’ and to defend a rule which establishes the conditions under which an ‘impartial’ judgment on practical questions can be made on the basis of reason (Habermas, 1990: 120, 195–203). In addition, the principle of universalization – like the categorical imperative – provides a ‘criterion’ for ‘generalizing maxims of action’ to adjudicate between those disputed norms that claim to be suitable as ‘universal laws’ (ibid.: 62, 63; Kant, 1998: 33). In other words, despite replacing the monological aspect of Kant’s categorical imperative with a dialogical procedure of moral argumentation Habermas’ principle of universalization still shares important similarities with Kant’s supreme principle of morality. Nevertheless, it is my contention that discourse ethics is not strictly a latter-day ‘moral’ theory in the Kantian sense of the term. This is because of the moves Habermas makes in addressing Hegelian and neo-Aristotelian (communitarian) critiques (Habermas, 1990: 195–216). Indeed, striking differences between discourse ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative become evident when Habermas seeks to defend discourse ethics against the sort of critique Hegel made against Kant’s moral theory. Habermas makes fundamental ‘Hegelian’ moves by bringing ‘moral questions and their answers into the world’ and making ‘them a part of practical life’ (Strong and Sposito, 1995: 281). Thus, on the one hand, in ‘Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action’ Habermas claims that – like Kant’s moral theory – discourse ethics is a formal, universal and cognitive moral theory (Habermas, 1990: 120–1, 195–9). However, on the other hand, in ‘Morality and Ethical Life: Does Hegel’s Critique of Kant apply to Discourse Ethics?’ he delineates differences between discourse ethics and Kant’s moral theory. Indeed, Habermas recognizes that Hegel levelled many ‘trenchant’ criticisms against Kant’s moral philosophy (ibid.: 195). These are: first, the abstract universalism, second, the formalism and third, the impotence of the ‘mere ought’ (ibid.: 195–6). I make the case that in his attempt to side-step Hegel’s criticisms of Kant’s moral theory, Habermas’ moral theory loses its distinctively ‘Kantian’ character and instead adopts many characteristics of Hegelian ethics.
Following Kant, Habermas claims that discourse ethics is a universalistic moral theory. By this he means that it ‘rejects the basic assumptions of ethical relativism, which holds that the validity of moral judgements is measured solely by the standards of rationality or value’ particular to one culture or ‘form of life’ (Habermas, 1990: 121). However, Habermas agrees with Hegel that the categorical imperative suffers from an ‘abstract universalism’ and he further asserts that the inter-subjective nature of discourse ethics avoids this critique because it breaks with ‘Kant’s idealism and monologism’ (ibid.: 206; Hegel, 1975: 75–9). As I have already said, Habermas relocates Kant’s conception of the categorical imperative (that takes place ‘privately’ for each individual) to a ‘public practice implemented by all persons in common’ (Habermas, 1990: 109–10).
In Hegel’s view, the categorical imperative requires the moral agent to abstract completely ‘all content’ from her or his concrete duties (Hegel, 1975: 76). He argues that this formalism leads to ‘tautological’ or meaningless statements about morality because the content of the procedural maxim remains empty and the ‘universality’ or ‘unity conferred’ upon it by the moral agent is merely ‘analytic’ (ibid.). Hegel makes the case that taken at face value the categorical imperative is absurd and even ‘immoral’ because any ‘specific matter’ which is ‘inherently particular’ can be made into a ‘moral law’ by ‘elevating’ it to become something ‘absolute’ and ‘universal’ (ibid.: 77, 78). Following Kant, Habermas claims that discourse ethics is a ‘de-ontological’ and ‘formalistic’ moral theory that privileges the right or the ‘just’ – understood in terms of procedural rules – over any particular conception of the good life (Habermas, 1990: 120, 196–7, 210; 1993: 2). He says these rules are ‘formal’ because they are concerned with questions of ‘justice’ rather than substantive guidelines or moral norms (Habermas, 1990: 207). However, Habermas says that discourse ethics does not lay itself open to Hegel’s charge of empty formalism. Instead, he argues that Hegel was ‘wrong’ to suggest that any formal or procedural principle only ‘postulates logical and semantic consistency and nothing else’ (ibid.: 204). Echoing Hegel’s position, Habermas’ maintains that every formal moral principle inevitably postulates the ‘employment of a substantive moral point of view’; the ‘content’ of which he says is ‘generated’ by ‘real life’ (ibid.). Habermas also accepts Hegel’s point that universal concepts cannot be formulated independently of any vision of the good life (ibid.: 205). In an attempt to go beyond Kant, Habermas says that ‘discourse ethics extends the deontological concept of justice by including in it those structural aspects of the common good life that can be distinguished from the concrete totality of specific forms of life’ (ibid.: 203).
It is interesting to note that Habermas makes a distinction between the good life and the ‘ common good life’. In other words, Habermas introduces a ‘third way’ in-between the abstract principles of Kant’s moral theory and the concrete specific norms of Hegel’s Sittlichkeit. It is these ‘structural aspects of the common good life’ that I argue Habermas refers to as the ‘moral norms’ that citizens must subscribe to when performing actions. These norms are not transcendental rules and they are not derived via the application of a general principle or universal law. They are generated in the practices of groups and individuals in their daily ‘lifeworlds’. However, discourse ethics is concerned less with how these norms come into being but rather with the way they can be validated, i.e. they must be agreed upon by all affected in an open and reciprocal manner and then accepted by all in their daily practices. Habermas recognizes that in modern complex societies participants have different and contrasting conceptions of the good life. He believes that through the ‘practice of deliberation’ his moral principle enables participants to come to a ‘standpoint’ on those contested norms that ought to mediate the behaviour of their ‘common good life’ (Habermas, 1998: 41).
Habermas accepts Hegel’s claim that Kant’s categorical imperative establishes ‘a strict separation of the “is” from the “ought”’ and fails to address ‘how moral insights can be realized in practice’ (Habermas, 1990: 196). He recognizes that the ‘justification of norms is no guarantee of the actualisation of moral insights’ (ibid.: 207, 209). Like Hegel, Habermas accepts that moral norms are ‘universal’ but not ‘transcendental’ (ibid.: 99, 207; Hegel, 1975: 215). For Habermas, a universally accepted norm is valid for all those affected by the norm at a particular time and in a given context. 9 He accepts that norms do not go unchallenged in the day-to-day practices of social interaction and their acceptance is ‘dependent’ upon what he calls the ‘continual re-establishment of legitimately ordered interpersonal relationships’ (Habermas, 1990: 61). In Habermas’ view, a given norm is legitimate only as long as individuals perpetuate and sustain it through their actions and practices. He also agrees with Hegel that moral norms need to be institutionally grounded and transformed into the ‘concrete duties of everyday life’ (ibid.: 207). However, for Habermas the ‘embodiment of moral principles’ cannot simply be left to the teleological unfolding of history or ‘Hegel’s absolute spirit’ (Habermas, 1996a: 111). 10 On the contrary, this is dependent upon the perpetual regeneration of ‘norms’ and values in concrete contexts of communicative action through the actions and ‘collective efforts’ of ‘sociopolitical movements’ (Habermas, 1990: 203, 208).
Habermas’ notion of morality as a sittlich relation
In the previous section I made the case that Habermas’ categories lose their distinctly Kantian qualities when he attempts to side-step Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral theory. In this section I make the specific point that Habermas does not use the term ‘moral norms’ or ‘morality’ as a Kantian ‘good will’ ‘in itself’, but rather as something like a Hegelian sittlich relation which is understood as the ‘common good life’ and a ‘cultural form of knowledge’ (Habermas, 1996a: 106–7). First, it is necessary to clarify the way in which Habermas understands this distinction which is central to discourse ethics. Like Hegel, Habermas draws a distinction between ‘morality’ and the ‘ethical’ (Hegel, 1991: 135–42). However, these terms have a fundamentally different meaning for both theorists. For Habermas, both moral and ethical discourses come under the sphere of ‘practical reason’, but moral judgements ‘differ from ethical judgements’ in their ‘degree of contextuality’ (Habermas, 1993: 2, 105). He says that practical reason concerns itself with the question ‘What should I to do?’ and ‘different tasks are required of practical reason’ depending on whether the question has to do with ‘the purposive, the good, or the just’: which are respectively related to ‘pragmatic, ethical and moral’ tasks (ibid.: 2, 3). Moral issues focus on the ‘just’ (as opposed to the ‘good’) and here the ideals of ‘impartiality’ and ‘fairness’ are at stake (ibid.: 13). According to Habermas, moral questions have a universal aspect and they involve considering what is ‘equally good for all’, that is, the wider community. This contrasts with ethical questions, which he sees as concerned with individual and group conceptions of the ‘good’, and which focus upon ‘what is good for me, for us or for them’ (ibid.: 151). Deliberation on moral issues requires individuals to extend beyond their particular interests to a ‘generalizable interest’ where the matter in concern is ‘whether I can will that a maxim [moral norm] should be followed by all’ (ibid.: 7, 151).
For Habermas, a norm or an action is not deemed moral because of the motive or will behind it (as Kant would have it), but rather because it specifies a form of conduct which the whole community has agreed to accept and abide by under conditions of fairness and reciprocity. Moral norms validated by the principle of universalization constitute the form of conduct or obligation an individual has to a community (Habermas, 1996a: 92). In Habermas’ view, moral norms legitimately order interpersonal relationships and coordinate actions (ibid.: 106). They are norms to be observed and complied with in the performance of one’s self-chosen (that is, one’s ethical) action. He says a ‘principled morality … facilitates a knowledge that is meant to orient one’s actions but does not dispose one to act rightly’ (ibid.: 113). In this sense Habermas’ use and understanding of ‘morality’ are comparable with Hegel’s concept of ethical life or ‘ Sittlichkeit’ as a socially integrative force that binds participants together. Habermas’ notion of morality is a post-metaphysical sittlich relation or as he puts it a ‘system of knowledge’ that (unlike Hegel’s ethical life) is democratically decided by the actions of participants in discourse (ibid.: 114).
Habermas’ distinction between moral and the ethical overcomes the monistic shortcoming of Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’. He claims that Hegel recognized the pluralism intrinsic to modernity by accounting for the principle of subjectivity (individuality) as it is manifest in the sphere of civil society. He also asserts that Hegel attempted to provide a unifying mechanism to counter the pathological effects of modernity by developing the unified concept of ethical life as manifest in ‘the state’. However, Habermas argues that Hegel was unsuccessful in his attempt to provide a unifying mechanism because he subordinates individual freedom to the unifying principle of the strong monarchical apparatus of the state (which for Hegel is the pinnacle of the sphere of the ethical) (Habermas, 1987: 40). According to Habermas, if Hegel had instead explicated ‘ethical totality as a communicative reason embodied in inter-subjective life’ then he says ‘a democratic self-organization of society’ could have taken the place of Hegel’s monarchical apparatus of the state (ibid.: 38–41). Habermas’ notion of morality is different from Hegel’s notion of Sittlichkeit in terms both of the nature and role of the state and also the content of the sittlich relation. For Hegel, Sittlichkeit is the ‘highest form of ethical life’ and should ‘concentrate itself in the state’ (Kierans, 1992: 419). Freedom is actualized in the realm of the state and this is where Sittlichkeit is perpetuated. By way of contrast, for Habermas, the moral norms that have been validated by the principle of universalization (the moral principle) bind individuals together. The content of the sittlich relation is validated and legitimated by participants in practical discourse who maintain and revise norms through their daily practices. Rather than grounding ethical life in the basis of a strong state, Habermas grounds ‘the ethical totality’ in ‘a communicative reason embodied in inter-subjective life’ (Habermas, 1987: 38). In other words, for Habermas modern citizens bind themselves together by democratically assenting to those norms that ought to steer their mode of conduct. In this way, norms and social cohesion are not imposed or decided under the auspices of a monarchical state. Thus, Habermas’ notion of ‘morality’ is best understood as a post-metaphysical democratically decided sittlich relation and not as a Kantian personal moral obligation.
Habermas argues that (unlike Hegel) his distinction between morality and the ethical does not ‘incur the cost of a historical dissolution of morality into ethical life’ (Habermas, 1993: 1). In other words, he seeks to protect morality from being subsumed by the values of a particular form of life. 11 For Habermas, it is essential that the validity of moral norms has some distance from the particularities of a given culture or tradition and therefore is established with reference to the discourse principle (which embodies universal principles of reciprocity). However, at the same time, we have seen Habermas steer discourse ethics away from the formalism and abstraction of Kant’s moral theory. In other words, Habermas aims to accommodate Hegelian and neo-Aristotelian-inspired objections to Kantian moral theory within his broadly ‘deontological framework’. According to Habermas, ‘ethical’ discourses (unlike morality) do not call ‘for a complete break’ with the ‘egocentric’ perspective of individuals and groups (ibid.: 6). He says in the case of ethical questions ‘what is being asked is whether a maxim is good for me’ in my particularity (ibid.: 7). Ethical judgements are therefore ‘embedded in the traditional context of a hitherto accepted, identity-constituting form of life’ (ibid.: 105). From Habermas’ perspective, individuals in modern pluralist society cannot pursue their own particular conceptions of the good life (ethical discourses) without establishing an agreement on those norms of conduct (moral norms) that ought to govern their self-chosen actions. These norms of conduct – or sittlich relation – replace the taken-for-granted ‘ethical life’ found in ancient Greece and medieval Europe (Habermas, 1974: 43; Habermas, 1989: 53, 151). For Hegel, the purpose of the state is the fulfilment of the good life, and individuals are therefore inextricably bound to the state understood as an ethical whole. By way of contrast, Habermas’ notion of the ethical does not tie individuals or groups to the apparatus of the state, but is instead the pursuit of one’s own quest for the ‘good’ within the broad regulation of collectively agreed ‘moral norms’. This is Habermas’ attempt to address the limitations of Hegel’s notion of ‘ethical life’.
Moral and legal norms
My interpretation of Habermas’ notion of morality as a Sittlichkeit relation has significant implications for his distinction between moral and ethical discourses. This is also the case with his legal–ethical distinction, which is established by giving the moral principle a legal articulation to become the ‘democratic principle’. This principle states that ‘only those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent [ Zustimmung] of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that has been legally constituted’ (Habermas, 1996a: 110). Habermas argues that it is crucial to maintain these distinctions. However, at the same time he also recognizes that there is the possibility of interplay within each pair of distinctions. In the first distinction he says that ethical values have the opportunity to become moral norms (ibid.: 14). In other words, the particular ethical practices or background knowledge of a particular group has the potential to become a moral norm as long as it can gain the assent of all affected. Indeed, he says that each group’s expectations or interpretation of a state of affairs can be converted into a topic of discussion (ibid.: 22). This is important for minority communities because it shows that there is scope for some of their norms and practices to be adopted by the majority through public debate and deliberation. Habermas emphasizes that the ethical practices of the majority are unlikely to withstand being challenged and criticized under modern conditions of political debate and deliberation. Indeed, it is fair to say that in Great Britain (for example) there has been a multifaceted interaction between various minority communities and the majority culture as well as between different ethical communities. For example, certain words and expressions, foods, behaviours and dress codes from minority communities have fused together to generate new cultural norms and practices. Habermas’ theory of discourse ethics provides a theoretical framework through which culturally diverse groups and individuals can pursue their own ethical conceptions of the good life, and bring the value of their particular conceptions of the good out of the private sphere into public collective debate.
In the second distinction (between legal and ethical discourses) Habermas emphasizes that no legal framework is ever entirely ethically neutral. Nevertheless, again he offers a positive message to minority communities by pointing out that the law is always subject to the possibility of change and can make exemptions or concessions for particular ethical groups (Habermas, 1998: 225). In other words, he recognizes that ‘cultural battles’ against the majority culture can lead to changes in the law and to the acquisition of cultural rights for minority groups (Habermas, 2004: 13–15). Habermas cites a number of cases where minority groups have successfully gained exceptions from established laws in Great Britain, Germany and the United States. For example, he mentions Sikhs in Great Britain and the United States gaining exceptions from generally binding safety regulations by being permitted to wear turbans rather than crash helmets when riding a motorcycle. Furthermore, he also recognizes that in order for a legal community to maintain its force of legitimacy it has to prevent the substantial ethical values of one group creeping into its formal requirements. For example, he is critical of the French constitution for being too strong and thereby violating ‘due neutrality’, for example, when it banned Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in school (ibid.).
My reading of Habermas’ notion of ‘morality’ as a Sittlichkeit relation moves us away from questions of individual personal morality and towards a focus on individuals recognizing communal obligations in the pursuit of self-chosen actions. This has fundamental implications for dealing with issues around multiculturalism, pluralism, tolerance and rights. Indeed, Habermas’ distinctions are useful for addressing controversial issues such as abortion and euthanasia that typically get discussed in terms of the public/private divide. For example, Habermas recognizes that the issue of abortion ‘cannot be resolved from the moral point of view’ or the Kantian view of morality (Habermas, 1993: 59). He says that beliefs about abortion are ‘inextricably interwoven with self descriptions of persons and groups and thus their identities and life projects’ and the question of abortion would be answered differently ‘depending on context, traditions, and ideals of life’ (ibid.). For Habermas, the subject matter of abortion is essentially an ethical one (i.e. concerned with individual conception of the good life) but nonetheless encompasses both moral and legal questions. He says that the moral question on abortion arises at the ‘general level of the legitimate ordering of the coexisting forms of life’, and the legal dimension secures ‘different ethical conceptions of abortion … under condition of equal rights’ (ibid.: 60). In other words, for Habermas the moral question is not a Kantian one (in the sense of requiring individuals to act in accordance with respect for a universal law) but rather it is a question of abiding by communal obligations. Moral discourses seek to establish a mode of conduct to inform the interactions between competing ethical positions on this issue. Because there is unlikely to be agreement on the issue of abortion – especially in a country like the USA where many citizens hold strong religious convictions – the aim of a moral discourse (the principle of universalization) is to establish suitable shared norms (a non-violent mode of conduct) that all individuals and groups could accept in their interactions with each other. These norms would steer their interactions on this matter, but it would not require a consensus at the level of ethical beliefs. By accepting a moral norm those offended by other people’s ethical values are obligated not to take matters into their own hand, but instead to negotiate their differences through the legal and political processes. 12
Legal norms – such as the Abortion Act 1967 in Britain or the American Supreme Court decision in 1973 in favour of Roe (in the Roe vs Wade case) – secure different groups the opportunity to exercise (or not) their right to abortion. It is important to point out that the Abortion Act and the Supreme Court decision effectively offend the ethical beliefs of ‘pro-life’ campaigners. However, Habermas recognizes that the law only temporarily ‘solves’ conflict on issues such as abortion, and because the law is democratically ‘steered’ by the community it is always potentially subject to change. Thus, ‘pro-life’ campaigners have the opportunity of overturning the decision legalizing abortion by steering the legislative process towards an outlawing of abortion. In other words, Habermas’ notion of law accepts that rights are not pre-given and cannot be imposed (paternalistically) but have to be fought for. Indeed, this implies that legal decisions permitting abortion cannot be taken for granted by ‘pro-choice’ campaigners and therefore need to be constantly defended by individual and group participation in the public sphere, in order to tip in their favour the decisions of political representatives (Habermas, 2001: 111).
‘Morality’ as civil norms?
My reading of Habermas’ principle of universalization as a procedure of democratic legitimacy and his notion of moral norms as a sittlich relation are further supported by his interpretation of the term ‘categorical imperative’, which is distinct from Kant’s understanding of this term. Habermas says that he does not read the categorical imperative as a ‘moral law that can be directly applied to maxims and actions’ (Habermas, 1993: 128). Instead, he argues that he uses this as a process from ‘which the validity of norms can be judged’ (ibid.). Habermas’ moral principle is not a matter of deciding concrete maxims that ‘permit different courses of action in a particular situation’. It is not a process where participants – collectively or individually – generate ‘justified norms’ but rather it is a process ‘for the testing of the validity of [contested] norms’ (Habermas, 1990: 103). In other words, the principle of universalization performs the function of establishing ‘order’ in the context of contested norms. Once there is temporary agreement on a norm then it is considered ‘moral’. Indeed, it is important to understand the link between Habermas’ conception of ‘morality’ and ‘politics’ in order to demonstrate that morality for Habermas refers to the civil norms that mediate the conditions of a modern political community.
For Aristotle, politics is the realization of ethics. The relative homogeneity of ancient Greek culture required ‘no meta-ethical principles, no principle of universalization, and no principle of equality in order for virtue to be achieved’ (Rasmussen, 1990: 65). In modern politics a distinction between ethics and politics becomes indispensable. Under conditions of modernity, the decline of ethical unity and absolute authority makes the subject matter of social coordination (in the form of general rules and norms of conduct) necessary. 13 According to Habermas, ‘in the domain of social philosophy and politics’ the search for these general rules of the political community was ‘first introduced implicitly by Hobbes and defined explicitly by Montesquieu’ (Habermas, 1989: 53). 14 They have continued in subsequent political philosophies till today, including in Habermas’ own political theory of discourse ethics under the term of ‘morality’ or ‘moral norms’. In modern politics a distinction between morality and ethics becomes necessary because of the irreducible pluralism of the ‘social’ (Habermas, 1996a: 64). Habermas identifies the problem of coordinating the plurality of different conceptions of the good – characteristic of modern society – as the central concern of modern political philosophy. For Habermas, the challenge is to identify the ‘moral’ principles – valid for all – that ought to coordinate the behaviour of participants in modern pluralist societies. In his view, morality is not a comprehensive ethical worldview, but nor is it an abstract categorical imperative. Instead, ‘morality’ refers to the civil norms that enable individuals to pursue their own particular conception of the good life (i.e. their own ethical conduct) (Habermas, 1993: 15–16). In other words, for Habermas, ‘morality’ is a common form of association – we could say a civic bond – between individuals, which lays down the conditions (or norms) to be adhered to in the pursuit of their ‘egocentric’ point of view (their ethical discourses).
Habermas advocates a typically modern understanding of politics, and Agnes Heller is correct to point out that this work represents a latter-day version of the social contract tradition (Heller, 1984: 12, 20). As I see it, like Hobbes, Habermas’ discourse ethics is concerned with questions of how to establish the conditions of a modern political community where individuals can both enjoy certain negative freedoms and coexist under a unified order. However, Habermas argues that Hobbes overlooks ‘the dimension of [human] solidarity’ and he therefore draws upon Kant’s critique of Hobbes to inform discourse ethics (Habermas, 1998: 14, 15). In other words, he says that the problem with Hobbes’ Leviathan is that it postulates isolated individuals who enter into a ‘private contract’ formed for the ‘determinate end’ to regulate ‘exchange relations’ rather than a ‘civil contract’ formed for an ‘end in itself’ (Habermas, 1996a: 449; 1998: 15). In Habermas’ view, the latter ‘is unique in not having any specific content at all; instead it provides the mode for a kind of sociation ruled by the principle of law’ (Habermas, 1996a: 93). To an Anglo-American audience Habermas’ reading of Hobbes’ Leviathan as a private contract is not dissimilar from C. B. MacPherson’s reading of Hobbes as a theorist of possessive individualism, while Habermas’ own account of the ‘civil contract’ resembles Michael Oakeshott’s theory of civil association (Macpherson, 1962; Oakeshott, 1975a, 1975b). 15 What is more, Habermas’ use of the term ‘morality’ shares important similarities with Oakeshott’s use of the term. 16 For Oakeshott, ‘morality’ does not refer to the motives a moral agent assigns to her or his actions but rather it is a ‘relationship’ of ‘human beings’ in the ‘mutual recognition of certain conditions’ that act as ‘prescriptions of obligations’ to be observed when choosing performances (Oakeshott, 1975b: 78, 79). For Habermas, the purpose of discourse ethics is to ‘establish [democratically] suitable socially integrating constraints on strategic action’ (Habermas, 1996a: 27). He argues that in the ‘cooperative regulation of their common life’ individuals ‘renounce violence’ and at the same time ‘concede one another the right to remain strangers’ (ibid.: 308). Indeed, Habermas turns to the democratic universalism of Rousseau’s social contract theory as a means of social integration (political legitimacy) which is able to accommodate both individual and collective autonomy (ibid.: 32, 110, 449).
Habermas accepts that ‘moral universalism’ is a ‘historical event that arose with Rousseau and Kant’, but his understanding of moral universalism is closer to Rousseau than Kant (Habermas, 1990: 208). Rousseau employs the term ‘moral’ as coextensive with the ‘general will’ to refer to a mode of conduct that ‘man acquires’ in the ‘passage from the state of nature to the civil state’ (Rousseau, 1973: 177–8). For Rousseau, ‘moral’ is not an individual personal conception of morality upon which one legislates one’s actions but it refers to communal obligations. Kant draws upon Rousseau’s notion of moral rationality (understood as a ‘principle of moral conduct applied … to political behaviour’) and applies it to the entire realm of human conduct (Cole, 1973: xxxvi). Habermas clearly draws upon the language of Kantian moral theory – in particular the universalizing function of the supreme moral principle – but the outcome of Habermas’ principle of universalization is closer to Rousseau. Habermas seeks to identify the conditions for legitimating norms that provide the democratic conditions for creating ‘the social compact’ (Rousseau, 1973: 173–5). Habermas says that moral universalism takes the form of a ‘nonleveling and nonappropriating inclusion of the other in his otherness’, by which he means that it allows for both ‘civic equality’ (sameness) and individuality (difference) at the same time without marginalizing or excluding one at the expense of the other (Habermas, 1998: 224–5). 17 He recognizes that in ‘complex [modern] societies the citizenry … can no longer be held together by a substantive consensus on values but only on the procedures for the legitimate enactment of laws and the legitimate exercise of power’ (Habermas, 2004: 7). 18 The voluntary consensus generated (on the acceptance of disputed norms) from the principle of universalization creates the conditions of a shared political bond under which individuals can pursue their particular concerns. This is similar to Rousseau’s claim that the social contract solves the problem of finding a ‘form of association’ which on the one hand unites all in the ‘general will’ but at the same time allows each associate to ‘remain as free as before’ as an individual (Rousseau, 1973: 174, 175). The purpose of moral universalism for Habermas is (like Rousseau’s ‘general will’) for individuals to identify and accept those communal ‘norms’ that ought to have a ‘binding force’ for them, i.e. to create an association that is (in the words of Rousseau) ‘moral’ and ‘legitimate’. However, Habermas is critical of Rousseau’s republican community because he says it ethically overburdens its citizens with the integrative function of public virtue. He also argues that Rousseau’s idea of the ‘general will’ is really the substantive expression of the will of a single and homogeneous ethical community rather than an agreement between a plurality of ethical life-forms on a shared set of norms of conduct.
Conclusion: moral norms and the political community
In this article I have made the case that the term ‘morality’ in discourse ethics is not Kantian in orientation, but functions more like a Hegelian sittlich relation. I have shown that despite Habermas’ explicit identification with Kantian moral theory, the principle of universalization does not focus upon the motives that the individual attributes to his or her actions, or with an individual acting in conformity with a moral law. The principle of universalization is not a procedure that prescribes or prohibits specific norms. Instead, it is a procedure that validates norms of conduct that individuals need to adhere to in their self-chosen actions. In other words, the outcome of the principle of universalization is a civic ‘morality’. I have demonstrated that Habermas’ notion of morality incorporates aspects of Hegel’s notion of ethical life understood as a ‘general mode of behaviour’ (Hegel, 1991: 215). In addition, I have shown that Habermas goes beyond the limitations of Hegelian ethical life by turning to a Rousseauian notion of democracy to determine the content of the sittlich relation. Unlike Hegel’s notion of ethical life, Habermas’ notion of morality is not dependent upon the dialectical unfolding of history, rather it is dependent upon individuals validating norms through agreeing with them under democratic conditions of reciprocity and equality and perpetuating them in their actions. Discourse ethics allows for the exercise of democratic agency in determining the outcome of contested norms. In this sense Habermas’ moral principle is a democratic procedure that legitimates norms of conduct (moral norms). I have also demonstrated that for Habermas moral norms constitute the ‘common good life’ as opposed to individual and group conceptions of the good life. His notion of ‘ethical’ discourses accounts for the multicultural and plural dimension of modern life. In Habermas’ theory individuals may pursue their own particular conception of the good as their performances and actions are informed by shared moral norms ( Sittlichkeit).
Once we have established that Habermas’ notion of morality is not the abstract Kantian notion of the categorical imperative, but more like a civil association, then we are able to place his discourse theory of morality within the tradition of critical republicanism. This is an important point of clarification and interpretation. Those thinkers who read discourse ethics as a form of Kantian moral theory overlook the richness of Habermas’ notion of moral norms, and its potential for regulating social norms in the current climate of multiculturalism and pluralism. Indeed, Habermas offers an alternative way in which to theorize the conditions of the modern political community, which avoids the pitfalls of deontological liberalism and the concrete contextualism of communitarian justifications of the modern political community. Habermas’ moral–ethical and legal–ethical distinctions are better suited to addressing the sorts of issue typically discussed under the rubric of the public/private divide, because he recognizes the way in which aspects of individual and group ethics come to inform one another in public debate and deliberation, without prescribing consensus on these issues at the level of substantive ethical beliefs.