Democracy, real and ideal : discourse ethics and radical politics / Ricardo Blaug.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blaug, Ricardo.

Series:

SUNY series in social and political thought

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Habermas, Jürgen--Ethics.

Habermas, Jürgen.

Democracy.

Legitimacy of governments.

Ethics.

Political science.

Physical Description:

xv, 229 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [1999]

Contents:

Part 1 Theory and Practice

Chapter 1 The Theory of Discourse Ethics 3

Habermas on justification

Dilemmas upon application

Chapter 2 Theory with a Practical Intent 19

The relation of theory to practice

Aristotle's distinction between techne and phronesis

Practical intentions

Part 2 From the Ideal to the Real

Chapter 3 The Affirmative Uses of Theory 35

As an interpretative tool

Cultural criticism

As an empirical tool

Critical sociological research

As a test for legitimacy

Democratic political theory

Sum of affirmative uses of theory and attendant problems

Chapter 4 Methodological Problems and the Limits to Theory 59

The distinction between morality and ethics

Institutional design as a category mistake

Dryzek's attempt to overcome the limits

Formulating the limits to theory

Concerning judgment

Part 3 The Nature of Political Judgment

Chapter 5 Habermasian Difficulties with Judgment 85

Justification and application

Critiques of the Habermasian account of judgment

The reflective turn

Chapter 6 Discursive Phronesis with a Cognitivist Core 107

How do we evaluate fairness?

Judgments that preserve fairness

Part 4 Real Participation

Chapter 7 Changing the Object Domain of Application 131

Democracy from the theorist's perspective

Democracy from the participant's perspective

Chapter 8 Toward a Democratic Politics 141

Judgments regarding the redemption of trade-offs.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-224) and index.

ISBN:

0791441075

0791441083

OCLC:

39069282