Oikeusvaltiollinen demokratia ja jatkuvan keskustelun eetos

Authors

• Jari Hoffrén

Abstract

In this article I present key elements of Jürgen Habermas’ latest approach to democratic theory (Faktizität und Geltung, 1992, trans. Between Facts and Norms, 1996). First, I show how Habermas makes strong efforts to persuade us to accept an idea of postmetaphysical and rational thinking. Secondly, I show how he builds links between postmetaphysical thinking and communication in order to define democracy as a reason- based political opinion- and will-formation process. This process is, according to Habermas, in a peculiar way "unsaturated", in the continual need for an ongoing conversation. Thirdly, I try to summarize how Habermas links these elements of continual political conversation to the process of lawmaking in the context of what he calls demokratischen Rechtsstaat. Habermas seems to think that rational politics as the process of lawmaking is actually "at work" in our postmetaphysically-based conversation, understood as discursive processing of pragmatic, ethical and moral aspects of political questions and problems.