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Chapter 6 Theories of Discourse Ethics James Sauer One of the fundamental assumptions of the liberal tradition of democracy , and so of the institutions nourished explicitly or implicitly by that tradition, is that there are a plurality of values that can conflict with one another and that are not reducible to one another. Consequently, it is widely accepted that value conflicts will not be eliminated. We do not expect to resolve our value conflicts to the satisfaction of all parties.1 However, this belief sets up a problem for social living. How can this irreducible pluralism of values be combined with a notion of legitimate social or collective action? Does collective action not require a common commitment to value? In the past two decades, a set of positions has emerged inphilosophy that argues that the structure of discourse can provide a framework for grounding or validating fundamental norms and values. The various positions are based on the recognition that valuesjustification is part of the rational process of argumentation and that argumentation is a subspecies of discourse. Therefore, discourse, viewed procedurally orcontextually, provides the potential for grounding moral judgments.2 This turn to discourse in ethics is an effort to reframe traditionalphilosophical questions about moral knowledge into questions about moral 1. Bernard Williams, "Conflicts of Value," in Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers, 19731980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 71- 82, puts forward an exceptionally well reasoned version of this thesis. 2. Obviously this is a subspecies of the problem ofjustification of moral claims. There is no value going into the labyrinths of this discussion. A short well-documented discussion is provided by Tom Beauchamp, Philosophical Ethics:An Introduction to Moral Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), 81-92. Douglas Odegard, ed., Ethics and Justification (Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1988), provides a collection of recent essays in the field. 97 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELDS OF ETHICS AND CONFLICT STUDIES discourse.3 In this shift, epistemological questions about the relationship between rational, knowing subjects and a rational, knowable objective morality are not the primary focus of concern. The new aim is to understand morality as a socially embedded practice where the crucial questions are those that have to do with the way the meaning and legitimacy of moral beliefs and values are established, reinterpreted and transformed within the discourse acts of a culture.4 This reframing of the traditional question of ethics has opened up to new philosophical scrutiny the relationship between morality as private commitment and morality as public action.5 If the tradition of liberal democracy has been to view ethics merely as a personal, private affair, the turn to discourse has shed light on the public dimension of morality. This, in turn, has contributed to a new examination of the private-public nexus of social interaction.6 DISCOURSE ETHICS: Two DISTINCTIVE APPROACHES The field of discourse ethics can be divided into two general approaches , each with spokespersons in Europe and North America. We will use the terms "proceduralists" and "contextualists" to describe these two approaches. The focus of the proceduralists is the structure of discourse and the norms and obligations that flow from the analysis of this structure, which are binding on rational interlocutors, regardless of the content of the value claims. The focus of the contextualists is the cultural context of meanings, which sets the reference frame for both the rules 3. Seyla Benhabib, "In the Shadow of Aristotle and Hegel: Communicative Ethics and Current Controversies in Practical Philosophy," The Philosophical Forum 21 (19891990 ), 1-31. 4. See Stuart Hampshire,Morality and Conflict (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 2, 79, 94# 5. On the relationship of morality and ethics, see James E. Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy(NewYork:McGraw-Hill, 1990), 3-5. Rachels argues that moralities are the praxiological "codes" or "frameworks" of moral reasoning that human beings employ to guide conduct. Ethics is a systematic reflection on the adequacy, soundness, issues and problems of these positions in a public forum governed by reason . Paul Ricoeur insists that ethics, which reconstructs the sources of moral imperatives in human intentionalityand action, comes before morality, which is concerned with the formal notions of the norms of permission and interdiction.See PaulRicoeur, "Avant la loi morale: L'ethique," in Encyclopaedia Universalis,vol. 22 (Paris, 1985), 42,44-45. We will not resolve these differences here. What is important is the recognition of the self-world connection in ethicsthrougha notionof reasons about actions. 6. See Jean-Marc Larouche, "Des sciences morales...

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