Habermas et la theologie: Notes pour une discussion entre la theologie et la "Theorie de l'agir communicationnel"

Kissling, Christian

1991

1991

journalArticle

Theology can show some limits of communicative action which are important for (social) ethics. In communicative action there is a category of acts directed neither by success nor by consensus: acts such as reconciliation, love, and forgiveness. These acts are often necessary for a consensus. Social ethics should not forget two insights: 1) Social ethics only deals with duties towards others without excluding the possibility of duties towards oneself. 2) Social ethics can only be useful for modern society as a synthesis of ethical theory and theory of society. In this way, Habermas's claim of the priority of the lifeworld gets moral significance. And theology, now, can found the expression of "structures of sin".