William Rehg

The essays in this volume reflect on and expand Frankfurt School critical theory as reformulated after World War II by Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, and others. Frankfurt School critical theory since the pragmatic turn has become a richer source of critical analysis that is at the same time socially and politically more effective. The essays are dedicated to Thomas McCarthy, who has done perhaps more than any other scholar to introduce English-speaking audiences to contemporary German critical theory.The book is organized into three parts. Part one deals with social theory and the rational basis of communication, including basic issues raised by the pragmatic turn. Part two examines conceptions of autonomy and the self. Part three deals with political theory, focusing on problems stemming from sociocultural pluralism. Together, the essays provide an overview of the latest developments in Frankfurt School critical theory as it responds to the challenges of pragmatism and social pluralism

The thesis of my paper is that argumentation theory provides a promising heuristic framework for addressing issues raised by the rationality debates in the philosophy of science, in particular the issues connected with scientific controversies over the appraisal and choice of competing theories. The first part of the paper grounds this thesis historically. In criticizing the logical empiricists, Thomas Kuhn set the stage for the subsequent opposition between a normative, anti-sociological philosophy of science and a descriptive, anti-philosophical sociology of knowledge. But he also hinted at the main lines of a multi-dimensional theory of argumentation which might frame a wide range of current investigations into scientific reasoning. In the second part of the paper I focus on the central normative aspect of this framework, dialectical argumentation, and clarify the key challenge, the underdetermination of theories by evidence. In the third part, I attempt to get beyond the dichotomy informing the rationality debates by reformulating the problem of theory choice within a broader context of scientific rationality.

In his Reflection Revisited, James Swindal interprets Habermas’s formal pragmatics as recasting the traditional philosophy of reflection in intersubjective, augmentation-theoretic terms. In this review essay, I consider some aspects of Swindal’s interpretation for situated moral criticism. I focus in particular on Swindal’s claim that moral discourse must be preceded by meta-discourses in which actors discuss issues related to the initiation of moral discourse. Although I reject Swindal’s arguments for the necessity of such meta-discourses, I provide further arguments for their theoretical possibility and practical desirability for a contextualized critical social theory.

Despite the foment of the last two decades, philosophical ethics has fallen on hard times. While an increasing number of universalistic moral theories in the Kantian tradition limit themselves to questions of social and political justice, neo-Aristotelian theories of the good, like that of Bernard Williams, question the very possibility and desirability of a philosophical ethics. Viewed against this landscape, the program of discourse or communicative ethics, initiated by Karl Otto-Apel and then developed by Jürgen Habermas, is marked by its optimism. Although sharing a great deal with the Rawlsian tradition, discourse ethicists insist that justice is not “the chief virtue of social institutions” alone, but the privileged domain of the moral as such. And although agreeing with neo-Aristotelians’ skepticism—later repeated by Hegel against Kant—about decontextualized ethical theory, discourse ethicists nonetheless believe that an abstract formulation of the moral point of view that would be context-sensitive is still possible.

This article asks whether an interdisciplinary "critical science studies" (CSS) is possible between a critical theory in the Frankfurt School tradition, with its commitment to universal standards of reason, and relativistic sociologies of scientific knowledge (e.g., David Bloor's strong programme). It is argued that CSS is possible if its practitioners adopt the epistemological equivalent of Rawls's method of avoidance. A discriminating, public policy–relevant critique of science can then proceed on the basis of an argumentation theory that employs an immanent standard of relevance, which is illustrated by drawing on Helen Longino's critique of behavioral theory.

Attempts to employ discourse ethics for assessing communication and information technologies have tended to focus on managerial and policy-oriented contexts. These initiatives presuppose institutional resources for organizing sophisticated consultation processes that elicit stakeholder input. Drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, this paper supplements those initiatives by developing a more widely usable framework for moral inquiry and reflection on problematic cyberpractices. Given the highly idealized character of discourse ethics, a usable framework must answer two questions: How should those who lack organizational power conduct their moral inquiry under non-ideal conditions of discourse? How ought they to understand the moral force of the judgments they reach under such conditions? In response, I develop the heuristic implications of Habermas’s principle of universalization. To render that principle usable for non-ideal discourse, I propose a modification that yields a scalar measure of “dialogically robust” judgments that are responsive to the actual state of discussion. To illustrate the use of these principles, I sketch two case studies, which examine the moral acceptability of violent video gaming and government cyber-surveillance.

Understood as an analysis of clashing argument cultures, C. P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” illuminates challenges to interdisciplinarity. Argument cultures involve not only distinct styles of argumentation and background assumptions, but also emotional attitudes and prejudices, including disdain for other argument cultures, that rest on ideals of inquiry and society. Case studies suggest that fruitful interdisciplinary work across such cultures requires institutionalized boundary contexts in which heterogeneous solidarity can develop.

Discourse ethics represents an exciting new development in neo-Kantian moral theory. William Rehg offers an insightful introduction to its complex theorization by its major proponent, Jürgen Habermas, and demonstrates how discourse ethics allows one to overcome the principal criticisms that have been leveled against neo-Kantianism. Addressing both "commun-itarian" critics who argue that universalist conceptions of justice sever moral deliberation from community traditions, and feminist advocates of the "ethics of care" who stress the moral significance of caring for other individuals, Rehg shows that discourse ethics combines impartiality with solidarity. He provides the first systematic reconstruction of Habermas's theory and explores its relationship to the work of such contemporary philosophers as Charles Taylor. His book articulates a bold alternative to the split between the "right" and the "good" in moral theory and will greatly interest philosophers, social and legal scholars, and political theorists.

The idea that business firms qualify as group moral agents offers an attractive basis for understanding corporate moral responsibility. However, that idea gives rise to the “corporate autonomy problem” (CAP): if firms are moral agents, then it seems we must accept the implausible conclusion that firms have basic moral rights, such as the rights to life and liberty. The question, then, is how one might retain the fruitful idea of firms as moral agents, yet avoid CAP. A common approach to avoiding CAP appeals to specific features of human embodiment, such as vulnerability to pain, as the basis for attributing moral rights to human persons but not to firms. But that response has less purchase in a Kantian framework, which does not ground moral status in such particularities of human embodiment, but rather in the rational nature that humans share with other rational beings. To avoid CAP while retaining a (broadly) Kantian framework, one does better to rely on features of firms as cooperative, compositionally derivative moral agents, created for the pursuit of specific ends. As derivative agents, firms do not qualify as Kantian ends in themselves, and thus are not appropriate bearers of basic moral rights. To further clarify the level of consideration we owe to firms, I draw on Darwall’s distinction between recognition respect and moral esteem, arguing that we should not respect firms as unconditional ends in themselves, but rather esteem morally autonomous firms as collective achievements of their human members.