This article explores critiques and reformulations of Habermas’s concept of communicative action as presented by feminist authors. Numerous articles considering communicative action as developed by Habermas from a feminist perspective have been published, but no systematic analysis of these arguments exists. This article aims to fill the gap by providing an examination of various readings of communicative action from a feminist standpoint. If, on one hand, the article collects the dispersed feminist critique of communicative action and offers insight into feminist (...) argumentation, its aim is, on the other hand, to reflect the critique itself. Therefore, attention is devoted both to feminist readings of communicative action, as well as to the potential shortcomings of these readings that are detected by a closer examination of Habermas’s own works. The article’s aim is also to show how feminist critics, in their interpretations and reformulations of communicative action, focus on an explication of the inclusive elements of communicative action. (shrink)

The article sets out to explore the international legal dimension in Jürgen Habermas' latest publications on philosophy of law. It is our view that Habermas deals with the examination of just relations beyond the nation-state first and foremost from a legal perspective, and that the key to a Habermasian reading of international justice is not through an application of discourse-theoretical models of communicative or moral action as such, but primarily through proper legal institutionalisation of the rule of law. In asserting (...) this view, we will look closer at the Kantian influence in Habermas' legal construct at the international level, and show why this institutional approach is to be sharply distinguished from and preferred to any exclusively non-institutional approach to international justice. (shrink)

Recent debates in political theory display a renewed interest in the problem of judgment. This article critically examines the different senses of judgment that are at play in Jürgen Habermas’ theory of law. The article offers a new critical reading of Habermas’ account of the legitimacy of law, and a revisionary interpretation of the reconstructive approach to political theory that underpins it. Both of these are instrumental to an understanding of what is involved in judging the legitimacy of law that (...) is richer than has been recognized thus far by both critics and defenders of Habermas. (shrink)