From: "E.Pavlov" <epavlov-AT-mail.ru>
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: Discourse Ethics and pluralism
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 20:33:04 +0000 (GMT)



> >   1. Does Discourse Ethics presuppose/call for the bracketing of variant
> conceptions of the good life?
> 
> I think we need to be careful about what 'bracketing' means.  The answer is yes
> insofar as moral discourse does not attempt to define what it is good to do in one's
> life, but rather what is _right_.  So Habermas assumes that within morality a range
> of ethical views are possible, but it is not the business of moral discourse to
> decide between them, nor is it the business of philosophers unless they are going to
> relegate themselves to parochial concerns.  Ethical discourse, according to Habermas,
> simply does not raise universal validity claims -- it says "this is what we value,
> and if you do not, then you are not one of us" -- whereas we can have no such luxury
> with morality; claims of right and wrong are intrinsically universal, whereas good
> and bad are shaped within the course of traditions; I think this stark of a division
> is somewhat dubious.

I don't know if this helps, but I was under impression and I might be wrong that Habermas
distiguishes between *moral questions* and *evaluative question* so that MQ deals with
the issues of the just, while EQ deal with the issues of the good - I can't lay a hand on a
particular text right now, but I think it is a good way to think to understand Habermas's
discourse ethics - the moral questions are what DE deals with, not evaluative questions
that are culture-specific. So we bracket our culture-specific understandings of what is good
to reason over what is just. 

Evgeni


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