Community and Public Ethics : A Pragmatic Understanding of Public Ethics

DOI IR Web Site

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • コミュニティと公共倫理 : 公共圏におけるコミュニティの倫理
  • コミュニティ ト コウキョウ リンリ コウキョウケン ニ オケル コミュニティ ノ リンリ

Search this article

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to articulate the conditions of what I call “public ethics” between various inhomogeneous communities in today's pluralistic and multicultural society. My strategy is as follows. First, I assess several notions of belongingness that the mainstream theories of community, largely in sociology and political philosophy, hold. I maintain that the belongingness of the members of contemporary communities can be characterized as a commitment to open communication. Second, examining Jürgen Harbermas‘s “discourse ethics” critically, I unweave the knot between the rationality theses on which it is inalienably based and the idea of communication that is interwoven with the theses. I argue that communication-oriented community, which the followers of Harbermas‘s communication theory would vindicate as the basis of the understanding of community, is not based on rational consensus, but has prevailed due to its empathy for the predicaments of others. Third, I expose what “lateral public ethics” are, viz., ethics that find social and political hope in pragmatic construction and resolutions. Finally, by tying public ethics in with Keiichi Matsushita‘s pragmatic notion of public and “civil ethics”, I integrate my notion of public ethics into the ideality of citizen autonomy and the citizen republic in the contemporary Japanese political and social setting. I conclude that public ethics can make it possible for communication-oriented communities, indispensable for fruition and social order, to be taken back from the state and restored to the people.

Journal

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top