Abstract

Habermas' communicative ethics is a rehabilitation of the procedural strategy in ethics initiated by Kant and reformulated by Rawls. This strategy, unlike the teleological strategy, does not refer to given goals as the basis of ethical justification. It instead offers a procedure that can be used to construct universal goals, and confer validity upon conduct. It aims at overcoming the alleged problems underlying Kant's and Rawls' theories to provide an effective procedural theory of ethics. ;The following study aims to contribute in three ways to the ongoing debate concerning Habermas' communicative ethics. ;First, it examines the motivations that underlie communicative ethics. It attempts to show how Habermas' theory has emerged from his critique of teleological ethics and the procedural ethics of Kant and Rawls. According to Habermas, the deficiencies underlying these theories stem from their monological framework. Habermas responds to these problems by a linguistic procedure embodied in the ideal speech situation. ;Second, the study will argue that the standard criticisms levied against Habermas' communicative ethics misconstrue his project. The basic criticism levied against Habermas' theory is that it too relies upon a monological framework and is therefore both ahistorical and formal. Further, the study will argue that the solution of relativism suggested by Rorty and Putnam to Habermas' alleged dilemmas revives the problems facing teleological ethics and the Kantian and Rawlsian brands of proceduralism. It is argued that communicative ethics should have crosscultural applicability to be an effective ethical theory. ;Third, the study argues that Habermas' formulation of communicative ethics does have a lacuna that leaves him open to the objection of formalism. The lacuna underlying Habermas' theory is his silence regarding the institutionalization of communicative ethics. However, this defect is not intrinsic to communicative ethics and can be remedied. In conclusion, the study argues that communicative ethics is not formal because it can be effectively used to rule out certain institutions as unjust. Moreover, communicative ethics can be fruitfully developed in support of a participatory democracy