Integrative Economic Ethics:Concept and critique

Initially developed by Jürgen Habermas ¹ and Karl-Otto Apel ² , discourse ethics remains one of the most influential critical theories of the twentieth century. Habermas’ book The Theory of Communicative Action (1981) and his later Remarks on Discourse Ethics (1991/1992, 1993) ³ describe how his ethical theory does not instruct people “upon what they decide but how they come to these decisions” (our emphasis, Baert 2001: 85) in fair conditions of discourse. This differentiation between “what” and “how” points to two important streams in normative ethics: material ethics on the one hand and formal or process-oriented ethics on the other hand. Material ethics tells us what to do, one example of which is the Ten Commandments of Christian ethics. These commandments set forth ethical norms: “Thou shalt not kill” or “Thou shalt not steal.” Process-oriented approaches in ethics, such as discourse ethics, do not focus primarily on concrete moral norms, but on the procedures that yield normative principles. Kantian ethics offer a good example: employ the categorical imperative in order to consider which acts are one’s genuine moral duties.