DIALOGUE AND ETHICS: Can the Study of Dialogue Teach Us Something about Ethics?

Authors

  • Thomas Kesselring

Keywords:

Apel, Co-Operation,, Competition, Debate, Dialogue, Discourse, Habermas, Ethics, Human Rights, Moral Rules

Abstract

Habermas and Apel tried to give Ethics a philosophical justification by analyzing the way we realize discourses. A discourse is a special kind of a dialogue or, more generally, communication. Habermas’ and Apel’s contributions profoundly influenced German philosophy and jurisprudence. Yet, Ernst Tugendhat, a friend of Habermas, very soon pronounced the objection, that the procedure of Habermas and Apel was circular: Their definition and description of “discourse” relied implicitly to the main ethical rules, and therefore these rules can easily be recognized by analyzing the settings (or structure) of a discourse. In the following text I’ll try to show that Tugendhat’s objection is valid, but nevertheless Habermas’ and Apel’s discourse philosophies remain inspiring for everyone interested in giving Ethics a solid foundation. I will argue, however, that the central pillar of this foundation is not discourse itself, but a particular kind of co-operation (“qualified cooperation”), of which discourse is an example. The main step in my argumentation consists in showing that different kinds of communication – discourse, negotiation, debate – correspond closely to different kinds of human interaction, of which “qualified co-operation” is the basic one.

Author Biography

Thomas Kesselring

Dr Thomas Kesselring has taught Philosophy and Ethics in Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Mozambique and Switzerland. He is a retired Professor of the Educational University in Berne, Switzerland.

References

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Published

2017-09-29

How to Cite

Kesselring, T. (2017). DIALOGUE AND ETHICS: Can the Study of Dialogue Teach Us Something about Ethics? . Journal of Dharma, 42(3), 311–334. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/jd/article/view/253