Abstract

Habermas proposes basing ethics on consensus-oriented communication. He insists that the only valid norms are those that can be agreed upon by all members of a community in free and open discourse. Despite the heavy emphasis on the social dimension of ethics and the rejection of subject-centered approaches to philosophy, his theory does seem to presuppose actions realizable from an individual perspective, e.g., a critique of existing value schemes, a realization of the contingency of values, a motivation for entering a rationally-motivated discourse, etc. Based on these observations of the individual perspective on Habermas's ethics, I am claiming that discourse ethics presupposes certain elements of existentialism and that a narratively-construed existentialism is feasible and useful despite Habermas's critique of subject-centered reason