Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action: Moral Conciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) [Paperback]

Jürgen Habermas (Author), Christian Lenhardt (Translator), Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262581183 | ISBN-13: 978-0262581189 | Publication Date: October 8, 2001

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University. A founding editor of Zone Books, he is the author of Techniques of the Observer (MIT Press, 1990) and coeditor of Incorporations (Zone Books, 1992). He has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, Mellon, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (October 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262581183
• ISBN-13: 978-0262581189
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Hardcover)

Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action is the primary anglophone source for Habermas's writings on "Discourse Ethics." Written in the early eighties, this translation, which was published in 1990, provides a developmental perspective. The focus of the essays moves from Habermas's statements about the role of philosophy today, in "Philosophy as Stand-in and Interpeter, to his writing on reconstructive social science in general, to his program for a discourse ethics in particular. The final papers address criticisms of this program. The volume suffers a bit from the fact that Thomas McCarthy's introduction is keen to locate Habermas's position vis a vis various contemporary moral-philosophical standpoints, but does not go very far toward locating the whole initiative in the broader canvas of Habermas's overarching social-theoretic project.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best justification for Habermas's philosophy, May 3, 2009

By 

P. Gehrke - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action: Moral Conciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

Put bluntly, the chapter on the philosophical justification for the theory of communicative action is probably the best explanation and justification Habermas gives anywhere for his work and project. It is a rich, well-documented, cogently argued piece that (no matter how much I might disagree with its conclusions) provides the reader with the full spectrum of where Habermas is grounding his thought and what is at stake in his project. As a whole, for both good and ill, this book offers a clarity and completeness in argument that can be difficult to find in any thinker. I consistently return to it as a touchstone (or perhaps Rosetta stone) for deciphering less than clear elements elsewhere in Habermas's writings.