Toward a post‐Habermasian discourse ethics: The acknowledgment of the other

Abstract

A significant attempt to recover ethics within the post‐Nietzschean and post‐Holocaust era has been Habermas's articulation of a “post‐conventional discourse ethics.” Habermas's work is of particular interest to the field of communication studies because it attempts to ground ethics in “the universal and necessary presuppositions of argumentation.” Yet there have been numerous challenges to Habermas ‘s discourse ethics, including the charge of ethnocentrism. This essay implements Levinas's philosophy of ethics in order to articulate three specific objections to Habermas's discourse ethics and to amend Habermas ‘s project of identifying the necessary preconditions of ethical communication. Specifically, Levinas's conception of ethical obligation as originating in the call of the Other identifies the acknowledgment of the Other as the one necessary precondition of discourse, and provides a phenomenological account of the nature of that precondition as ethical. Consequently, Levinas revitalizes the on‐going conversation concerning Habermas ‘s discourse ethics as a viable and practical solution to the postmodern crisis of ethics.

Notes

Jeffrey W. Murray (Ph. D., University of Iowa) is an independent scholar currently residing in Pennsylvania. Correspondence can be directed to 103 Adelbert Dr., McMurray, PA 15317, or to [email protected].