Moralidad y legitimidad en la teoría crítica de Jürgen Habermas: normatividad, reconocimiento y solidaridad

Abstract

According to Jürgen Habermas, his theory of legitimacy is independent of morality. To justify this statement, he resorts to immanent arguments based on the historic development of modern society. However, the incorporation of the principle of discourse can be seen in the sense that legitimacy is not freed from morality of the Kantian tradition. This return of Kant opens the space for Hegelian objections. One of them is elaborated by James Finlayson, who argues that the problem in Habermas is that he reconstructs a notion of normative validity that incorporates Thomas Nagel's distinction between agent-neutral interests and agent-relative interests. The inclusion of this distinction would be problematic, as it would imply a split that would make the agent-neutral interests of morality and the agent-relative interests of empirical subjects irreconcilable. This article argues that the objection can be answered from Habermas based on the concepts of recognition and solidarity. However, these concepts are incompatible with Nagel's distinction, so the latter must be rejected.