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Justifying the right to justification: An analysis of Rainer Forst's

constructivist theory of justice
Fernando Surez Mller
Philosophy Social Criticism 2013 39: 1049 originally published online 15 October 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0191453713507012

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Article

Philosophy and Social Criticism

39(10) 10491068
Justifying the right to The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0191453713507012
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of Rainer Forsts
constructivist theory
of justice

Fernando Suarez Muller

University of Humanistic Studies, The Netherlands

Abstract
The work of Rainer Forst constitutes the third generation of the Habermasian School. In Das Recht auf
Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] (2007) Forst develops a constructivist approach to justice in
a serious effort to find a systematic basis for critical theory. In this article the relevant arguments of
this approach are critically analysed. The position developed in the work of Forst appears to be
characterized by a fundamental ambiguity because it oscillates between two irreconcilable points. On
the one hand Forst seems to admit the necessity of something like the unconditionality of moral law
presupposing a kind of Kantian transcendentalism beyond constructivism. But on the other hand, he
turns back to a more Habermasian constructivist or proceduralist theory. The ambiguity implicit in
Forsts philosophy is that it does not find a compromise between these two approaches to discursive
theory so it fluctuates between them, needing the logical support of both poles.

Keywords
Constructivism, critical theory, Rainer Forst, right to justification, transcendentalism

I Introduction
The work of Jurgen Habermas constitutes a turning point in the history of the Frankfurt
School that was very much inspired by an interpretation of American pragmatism and
by the work of his colleague Karl-Otto Apel. The Habermasian School, which could be

Corresponding author:
Fernando Suarez Muller, University of Humanistic Studies, Kromme Nieuwegracht 29, Postbus 797, Utrecht,
3500 AT, The Netherlands.
Email: fsm@uvh.nl

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1050 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

called the second Frankfurt School, distinguishes itself from the first by a multidimen-
sional view of reason. It is a critical theory based on a theory of discourse and it aban-
dons the Marxist paradigm. This Habermasian School is now turning into what could
be called its own third generation.1 Taking as a point of reference the discursive the-
ory of Habermas, the second generation, led by Axel Honneth, concentrates on the
dimension of recognition [Anerkennung] as the foundation of discursive practices and
intersubjective relations. The third generation is constituted by the work of Rainer
Forst and uses a more abstract theory of justification. In the work of both Honneth and
Forst there is a shift from the Habermasian position to a point of interest that claims to
be more basic and fundamental for the constitution of a genuine normative dimension
inherent to discourse. Both Honneth and Forst turn back to German traditions, the for-
mer to Hegel and the latter to Kant, in order to make their claims understandable. The
work of Forst is developing rapidly since the publication of Toleranz im Konflikt
[Tolerance in conflict] in 2003, with the appearance of Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung
[The right to justification] in 2007 and with his Kritik der Rechtfertigungsverhaltnisse

[Critique of the conditions of justification] in 2011.2 But in fact the main ideas of all
these works were conceived in his earlier book Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit [Contexts
of justice] of 1994, published in English in 2002. In Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung
[The right to justification], however, Forst undertakes a serious effort to find a sys-
tematic basis for his earlier ideas, which gives this work a pivotal position in the devel-
opment of his philosophy. This book develops a very complex argument which is made
difficult to understand by the rather contingent sequence of its chapters (Das Recht auf
Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] is a juxtaposition of articles) and by the
extremely detailed exposition of, and discussion with, several contemporary thinkers.
The importance of this work for the understanding of Forsts thinking, and for the
understanding of the development of Frankfurt philosophy, requires a critical analysis
of its main arguments leaving out many of the detailed discussions which complicate
the picture. But before doing that it seems appropriate to give a short impression of
Forsts early work in order to understand what the starting point of his philosophy
is, what he is aiming at and what his relationship is to his predecessors.

The early work

Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit [Contexts of justice] is an immersion into the debate
between communitarians and liberals which took place in the 1980s and early 1990s
of the last century. It is an attempt to design a separate position, based on Habermas,
that defends the idea of a moral universalism that is also contextual (1994: 239346).
This idea is at the core of Forsts interest which is to develop a theory of justice synthe-
sizing the ideas of both communitarians and liberals. How can we conceive a theory of
morals and justice that is at the same time universal by taking up the claims of liberal
philosophy, and contextual in that it does justice to the claims of communitarians? Of
course, this is not possible if we consider the contextual approach to be equivalent to
relativism. Forst distances himself from contextualism in the sense of a limitation of
the validity of moral claims. His contextualism presupposes that discourses claiming
normative validity have many domains, the main one being the context of morality

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Suarez Muller 1051

which is always directed towards the constitution of universal claims. The ethical, jur-
idical and political domains are relatively independent from morality. They develop
their own modes of justification and argumentation and their own criteria of evalua-
tion, which can, but should not, contradict the principles of morality developed in the
moral context. A theory of justice that wants to be universal must be based on a con-
sideration of the domain of morality. The ethical, juridical and political are variable in
time, culture and community. The philosophical foundation of morality makes an eva-
luation of ethical, juridical and political issues possible, but even with a positive eva-
luation these contexts can have different cultural shapes all compatible with the
principles of morality. The main issue motivating Forsts philosophy therefore seems
to be the question of how to combine universalism and pluralism. Next to the variance
of contextual languages there is a moral Esperanto guaranteeing a neutral and universal
position. Together with Apel and Habermas, Forst defines reason as the search for a
universal justification that claims general validity and that must be acceptable for all
concerned. Discursive theory is an attempt to reconstruct the recursive, that is, the
necessary formal and pragmatic [formalpragmatische] presuppositions of discourse
which regulate not only reason but also a morality inscribed into reason, and this
includes the ideas of reciprocity, generality, solidarity and respectfulness (1994:
301). From these principles the context of morality derives its right to modulate the
contexts of ethical, juridical and political argument.
In Toleranz im Konflikt [Tolerance in conflict] Forst pursues two aims. The first is a
historical reconstruction of the idea of tolerance as it appears from the beginning of
modern philosophy. The second aim is to integrate the idea of tolerance with his theory
of different normative contexts which he developed in his earlier work. For our purpose
the theoretical part is more relevant. Forst develops a theory of tolerance starting from
a theory of discourse. To be tolerant means to be capable of imagining a community of
disagreement (2003: 12). In this new setting, the problem of unifying universalism and
pluralism reappears. There must be a domain universally guaranteeing the necessity of
tolerance (the moral context) and several domains where specific disagreements
should be possible (the ethical, juridical and political contexts). Only by separating
a moral context that is universal from other contexts does it become possible to solve
the so-called paradox of tolerance which is the idea that there are limits to tolerance,
that intolerance should not be tolerated (ibid.: 37). Tolerance guarantees the existence
of a plurality of opinions on the level of the ethical, juridical and political discourse,
but on the level of morality philosophy must develop norms and principles that are
capable of being accepted reciprocally and generally. Forst takes up an idea that he
introduced rapidly in Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit [Contexts of justice] (1994: 133) and
that will be pivotal in his next book: the basic principle making such a development of
general norms possible is the principle of justification which denotes an expectation
that all participants of discourse necessarily make when they engage in dialogue
(2003: 19, 590). There may be no intolerance without a justification capable of being
accepted by all concerned. So, in Toleranz im Konflikt [Tolerance in conflict] Forst
already conceives all the theoretical terms that will be extensively elaborated in Das
Recht auf Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] including the criteria of recipro-
city and generality (ibid.: 596, 630).

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1052 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

Searching for a systematic approach

This short incursion into the early work of Forst shows that his main concern is to estab-
lish the normative authority of a universal idea of justice. This aim culminates in the sys-
tematic approach of Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] which can
be seen as the theoretical outcome of the preceding work. Forst becomes more and more
dependent on a constructivist interpretation of Kant, who seems to be the philosopher
accompanying all his thoughts. He moves towards a general discursive theory of reason
incorporating not only the discursive theory of Habermas, but also the theory of recog-
nition developed by Honneth. In this sense the so-called third generation of the Haber-
masian School seems to be working on a synthesis of the achievements of its
predecessors.
In the following discussion I would like to show that the position developed in Das
Recht auf Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] and in several passages of his earlier
work is characterized by a fundamental ambiguity because it oscillates between two irre-
concilable moments. On the one hand Forst seems to admit the necessity of having some-
thing like moral insight claiming a kind of unconditionality, which takes his theory in
the direction of transcendentalism showing many resemblances to the work of Karl-Otto
Apel and influenced by Kants transcendental philosophy. On the other hand, Forst dis-
tances himself from this position and turns back to a more constructivist or proceduralist
theory following the example of Habermas and the constructivist Kantianism of Onora
ONeill (1994: 291).3 The ambiguity implicit in Forsts philosophy is that it does not find
a midway nor a synthesis between these two approaches to discursive theory so it moves
back and forth between them, needing both as fluctuating poles. The ideas of an ultimate
foundation [Letztbegrundung]
and of an ideal speech community elaborated by Apel,
and also the idea of self-evidence that Dieter Henrich developed from Kants represen-
tation of a fact of reason [Faktum der Vernunft] seem to impose themselves as necessary
outcomes of Forsts theory of discourse. However, he does not think this through, pos-
sibly because he wants to keep in line with the constructivism of Habermas and his con-
sensus theory of truth. The overall ambiguity of Forsts position is that in its
interpretation of morality it implicitly moves towards ontological realism, but explicitly
presents the contrary, a constructivist interpretation denying this possibility. The deepest
reason for this ambiguous position is Forsts desire to avoid metaphysical claims and to
present a totally secularized theory of justice.
The ambiguity appears when Forst relates justice to a theory of reason because he
veers towards anthropology, speaking not of reason in general but of human reason,
of intersubjective communication. This keeps him far from the metaphysical idealism
that inspired Kant and his Romantic followers. But this does not prevent him from trying
to give a sketch of a general theory of practical reason, aiming at a transcendental foun-
dation of the criteria of justice which as we will see has clear metaphysical conse-
quences. Three moments seem to be fundamental in this more general theory of
reason: first, the idea of the inevitability or inescapability of reason, which is an answer
to the question Why reason? ( 2); second, the very basic answer to the question What
is reason? in the sense of How is reason structured? which implies a theory of justi-
fication that Forst develops as a theory of practical reason ( 3); and third, an explanation

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Suarez Muller 1053

of the most fundamental motive for the realization of reason, which would be an answer
to the question Why follow reason? or Why be reasonable? ( 4). In all three moments
Forsts design suffers from an ambivalent approach that takes transcendental insights to
be merely constructions.

II The inescapability of reason

The first question to ask when elaborating a rational theory of justice is Why should a
theory of justice be rational? Of course all theory strives to be rational, so we could say
that Forst is considering here a fundamental philosophical problem of epistemology.
Reason, according to Forst, is inescapable and therefore it is nonsensical to ask Why
be rational? (2007: 55). Asking or answering this question already implies a commit-
ment to rationality. And this, according to Forst, also applies to the question Why be
moral? Once we have understood that there is, in the centre of rationality itself, a nor-
mative core (because reason involves a duty to justification), such a question becomes
superfluous. Reason holds in itself an imperative directed to the instance using this rea-
son and has in itself a duty to justification.
This argument making reason an inescapable and therefore irrefutable and necessary
first insight is also the basic point of the claim that reason is autonomous (2007: 5660).
According to Forst, the autonomy of reason means that there is nothing that can justify
reason but reason itself. Reason cannot be deduced from any higher authority. Reason is
autonomous, because reason quasi justifies itself (ibid.: 56). It justifies itself because
reason, in the recursive process of self-justification or self-reconstruction, is searching
to understand its own principles and rules (1994: 359; 2003: 592).
This argument of the autonomy of reason is extended to that of the autonomy of mor-
ality (2007: 7499). The autonomy of morals is based on the autonomy of reason, because
practical reason is part of reason. Autonomie der Moral [The autonomy of morality] means
that there is no higher authority justifying morality than reason itself. Forst is trying to say
that morality is not autonomous from reason, but that it is autonomous thanks to reason. He
also relates the autonomy of morals to the idea of personal autonomy, but this is of course
just a variation of the idea that morality depends on reason because it is rationality that
makes a person autonomous. The reference to reason also means that morality cannot
depend upon arbitrary cultural presuppositions or prejudices like religious laws or other
random customs or manners (ibid.: 10, 77). If we want to answer the question Why be
moral? then we cannot escape discursive argumentation (ibid.: 57). We are already
involved in the normative dimension of reason, because reason implies an obligation:
we commit ourselves to the production of reasons [Grunde]. Once we feel this duty we
know that we have crossed the bridge from cognitive to practical reason.
So, just as a theory of reason is autonomous when it is based on unconditional and
irrefutable principles, a theory of morals can claim autonomy when it develops its prin-
ciples in a similar unconditional way. Forst in fact follows Kant, who was concerned
with the unconditional duty [die unbedingte Pflicht] related to the imperatives of mor-
ality [das Sollen], but following ONeill he translates Kant into a discursive theory and
situates the development from cognitive to practical or normative reason in the moment
in which every cognitive sentence implies an unconditional duty of justification (2007:

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1054 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

61). It is this relation to a discursive situation which makes him say that his position is a
constructivist and contextualist one. Although he clearly states that the principle of jus-
tification is not a product but a kind of evidence, he considers this evidence to be the
construction of a recursive analysis, a self-reconstruction of reason searching to under-
stand its own principles and rules, that has to start in a contextual situation (1994: 359;
2003: 592; 2007: 56). The recursive method starts from an immanent analysis of contex-
tual discourses (he speaks of a kontextimmanente Analyse) reconstructing several
layers of higher foundations which reveal the right to justification inherent in reason
itself (ibid.: 62).
Here there is, I think, a problem in Forsts argumentation. Although he never identi-
fies his own argumentation as being transcendental and he even avoids the term quasi-
transcendental still applied by Habermas, he in fact has been deploying a transcendental
argumentation which has at its core a strong similarity to arguments of ultimate founda-
tion. This amounts to the discovery of a principle of justification and its corresponding
right to justification which are immanent to reason and not in any way constructions of
man. But he nevertheless declares his position to be a constructivist one because it starts
in a contextual discursive situation. Even if Forst was conscious of this ambiguity, the
problem remains that although he discovers principles beyond human construction, he
nevertheless identifies them as constructions of a recursive contextual analysis.
To clarify this ambivalence let us have a look at Forsts so-called recursive method.
This method starts from a discursive contextual situation in which we need to move to
higher and more abstract dimensions of justification. Forst seems not to be very con-
scious about the fact that in order to understand these evidences of reason (like the first
principle of justification and the idea of autonomy) we need a kind of Husserlian brack-
eting of the lifeworld and its specific contexts of discourse. Indeed, it is only then that we
can understand that rationality is inescapable. Forst should have made clear that we need
some methodological steps to understand this. One main step needed is an epoche or
bracketing of the lifeworld. If we connect the question Why be rational? to actions tak-
ing place in a specific context we will have to acknowledge the possibility of non-
rational actions, which would not allow this question to be seen as being nonsensical.
We can only understand that reason is inescapable if we separate reason from a specific
context of action. As long as reason stays connected to a specific contextual action, there
will be nothing nonsensical in the question Why be rational? because it will always be
possible to act in non-compliance with reason. But the question becomes nonsensical
from the moment that we generalize it and separate it from any particular context. So,
we have to abstract this question from the lifeworld and go through a process of brack-
eting that moves away from specific contexts of argumentation (including the ethical,
political and juridical contexts of justification specified by Forst) sticking to a particular
highly abstract sentence (Reason is inescapable) that cannot be negated on its logical
level without contradicting oneself. This is what it means to come to higher and more
abstract dimensions of justification. It is on this level that it becomes evident that we can-
not escape reason.
This amounts to a position that is not far from the accentuation of reason which we
find in the transcendental tradition from Kant and German Idealism onwards. The point
that reason is inescapable is therefore recognized as an irrefutable and necessary first

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Suarez Muller 1055

insight, escaping all arbitrariness. In fact Forst works with insights of a theory of ultimate
foundation [Letztbegrundung],
although he never uses these terms to denote his own
position. These insights also constitute the basic point of his claim that reason is auton-
omous, because autonomy means that everything could be negated and questioned
[Alles einzelne . . . lat
sich hinterfragen und kritisieren, (2007: 56)] except, of course,
reason itself. Reason cannot be deduced from any higher authority. The claim that there
is nothing prior to reason justifying reason can be equated to pronouncing sentences like
reason is inescapable, reason is inevitable, or even reason is absolute which are ulti-
mately grounded sentences, because they cannot be denied without contradicting one-
self.4 Instead of naming things for what they are, acknowledging his debt to the
transcendental theory of ultimate foundation, Forst stresses the fallibility and fragility
of human reason which, according to him, make ultimate foundations impossible (ibid.:
68). But in fact Forst has shown that being finite or fallible does not make it impossible to
describe irrefutable evidence. Admitting irrevocable insights does not mean that a theory
is complete and that it accepts no further revisions. So, Forst first presents the autonomy
of reason and the principle of justification as irrevocable certainties, but then he seems to
retract saying that irrevocable foundations are not possible for mankind.
Summarizing this section we may say that although Forsts theory takes him to a
realm of pure reason he never sticks to the point to which his reasoning brings him.
He always turns back to contextual situations, forgetting the bracketing that was nec-
essary to make his point. He emphasizes that his reasoning takes place as an immanent
analysis of contextual situations (his kontextimmanente Analyse), but he seems una-
ware of the fact that his own recursive method needs a bracketing and a passage to
transcendental and higher levels of abstraction involving a detachment from all spe-
cific contexts in order to arrive at the basic unconditional principles of reason. By
emphasizing contextualism he tries to justify his constructivist position, but in fact
he is presenting us with a transcendental analysis that takes essential insights from ulti-
mate foundation theory. He admits that although all principles of morals are construc-
tions of man, the first principle of justification is not (2007: 38). The duty to
justification must not be taken like a normal obligation as something produced by
us, but must be taken as something that we have in an absolute mode [die man
schlechterdings hat (ibid.: 61)]. Forst describes this moment of unconditional evi-
dence using an expression of Henrich who speaks of moral insight [sittliche Einsicht
(ibid.)] and who used this expression in order to find an equivalent for Kants notion of
the fact of reason [Faktum der Vernunft]. And Forst admits that this fact denotes
unconditional evidence (ibid.: 62). All claims of constructivism seem to disappear
here, because our duty to justify ourselves is unconditional and not a construction of
man, but a principle of inescapable reason itself. But despite this admission of a fun-
damental non-constructivist part of reason Forst sticks to constructivism, because
according to him the evidence of the unconditionality of reason can be substituted
by what he calls a context analysis of validity claims.5 The evidence that Kant, Hen-
rich and he himself are speaking of, is according to Forst not immediate evidence
because we need a recursive analysis to come to it. This means that we have to start
in a contextual situation reconstructing several layers of higher foundations bringing us
to the revealed first moral principle inherent in reason itself (ibid.). This reconstruction

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1056 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

belonging to the method of recursive analysis is a construction too and makes it pos-
sible to maintain the claims of constructivism. But Forst seems here to be confusing the
level of the explanans (the methodological level) with the level of the object of inquiry,
the explanandum. Of course, a method is always a construction, but this does not mean
that the discovered object is a construction too. The ambiguity of Forsts situation is
therefore that he oscillates between two irreconcilable positions. His argument takes
him to the point of claiming a kind of ultimate foundation that is an unconditional and
irrefutable evidence (like Henrichs idea of moral insight or Kants Faktum der Ver-
nunft), but then he crawls back clinging to the reality of contextual discourses where
his argument and method began. The ambiguity of Forsts position is that, after leaving
the valley of lifeworld existence to climb the mountain of reason and morality, he
declares the first principles found on the top to be just constructions made in the valley.

III The fundamental structure of reason

Resolving the question Why reason? we have already seen that the right to justification
plays a fundamental role in Forsts theory of justice because this right is a unique root to
which all other rights are connected. The insight that the right of justification is inherent
in reason is partly an answer to the second main question driving Forsts work which is
the question What is reason? in the sense of How is reason structured? Forst is mainly
interested in practical reason which means that the elements of reason that he empha-
sizes are all relevant for a theory of justice. I will try to summarize Forsts position
addressing three points that in my view are fundamental for understanding the structure
of practical reason. (1) The first point concerns the ultimate principle of practical reason
which according to Forst seems to be the right to justification. This principle becomes the
starting point of a systematic theory of justice, but it is possible to doubt about the pri-
macy of this right. (2) The second point concerns the main criteria of practical reason
which according to Forst are generality and reciprocity. These criteria can be used in
order to determine what justice is in a general way (independently of contextual issues)
and remain therefore to a large extent formal. I will try to show that Forst is wrong in
considering them to be criteria and that they need to be complemented by at least one
other important formal principle. (3) The third point is about a claim of substantialism
that Forsts theory of justice makes, about how this claim conflicts with his declared con-
structivism and about what the real presupposition is that confers on Forsts theory of
justice its critical power. I will show that this implicit element, which Forst does not
mention, is in fact the transcendental concept of the ideal community of communication.
Forst therefore remains indebted to early Habermas and even more to Apel, which also
means that he does not escape, as he claims, the transcendental and metaphysical presup-
positions related to the ideal speech situation.

1
The principle of justification constitutes, according to Forst, the core of reason and a nor-
mative translation of this principle is the right to justification. Like the criteria of gen-
erality and reciprocity, which I will consider later, to Forst this principle is not a

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Suarez Muller 1057

construction of man (2007: 11, 84). All other rights and moral norms, despite the uni-
versality of their claims, are constructions of man, but they depend on the first principle
of practical reason and its criteria (ibid.: 14). We have already seen that this comes to
admitting that the status of this principle is transcendental and that it is inappropriate
to speak of constructivism here. I think this can only be done if we mean that these
principles (the first right and its criteria) are constructions made by reason itself. But this
of course only means that they are an integral part of or inherent in reason. If we take
constructivism in this large sense the whole tradition from Plato to Hegel would be con-
structivist. So, to use the term construction is not really satisfactory to denote the first
level of morality. It is even questionable to use this term for the level of rights that
depend on or can be derived from the first right to justification because, although they
come from the right to justification, their validity cannot be seen as a construction. To
relate rights to a first right that has an evidence status cannot be considered to be a con-
struction when the evidence of its validity is transmitted.
If reason is bound to justification I wonder whether it would not be more consequent
to equate reason to dialogue. When we say that the first principle of reason is justification
this seems to presuppose that reason is inherently intersubjective and dialogical. Forst
shows that reason is always linked to a discursive context. Reason seems to be a kind
of epiphenomenon of this context, in the sense that there is no reason beyond the actual
discursive situations that take place in the lifeworld. But Forst discovered that the prin-
ciples of reason are transcendental (although he does not use this word) and independent
of these situations, so that he should have said not that reason is linked to discursive
situations, but that reason in itself, taken in its transcendental meaning, is dialogical.
If reason in this transcendental sense is inherently dialogical then the first right related
to it would be the right to participate in dialogue. This right to be part of dialogue makes
it understandable why there is also a subsequent right called the right to justification. Jus-
tification presupposes the possibility of involvement in dialogue, which means that in
fact there is a more fundamental right and a deeper root of justice than the right to jus-
tification. Dialogue does not take place because there is a need of justification, but the
other way round, there is a need of justification because reason is, in its own dynamic
and inner life, dialogical.
This primacy of dialogue would fit better with Forsts aim to give a rational basis of
pluralism, because if dialogue is the core of reason then pluralism would be an a priori
condition of reason. To safeguard pluralism it would then not be necessary, as seems to
be the case now, to insist on the neutral or agnostic dimension of the procedural frame of
moral discourse (2007: 18). Forst has to insist on this procedural aspect because in itself
the right to justification does not imply any pluralism. Justification can be taken as a sys-
tem of foundations constituting a whole with parts and subparts and with the rigidity of
logic. Because we could imagine the existence of a closed state justifying its own deci-
sions by decree, and because justification alone is no guarantee of openness, we should
be more precise and acknowledge that the ultimate right of justice is real participation in
discourse. This ultimate right is of course, like all other rights, a specific good, determin-
ing good life, so it would be erroneous to designate a theory of primordial rights, as
Forst does, as being an agnostic theory involving neither goods nor values (ibid.).

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1058 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

Dialogue, pluralism, justification, etc., in my view are primary goods and values. They
are extremely valuable because they are universal.
The right to participate in community life through reason (dialogue) also implies that
there is a higher identity belonging to us all and constituted by reason that does not
demand assimilation but participation without any loss of individuality or particularity.
Seen from this perspective reason is inextricably bound up with a transcendental com-
munity of dialogue striving for a common good and oriented towards the same centre.6
Diversity and plurality are therefore as irrevocable and indissoluble as reason itself. In
fact Forsts critical theory of power, which he develops in the third part of his book
on justification (2007: 291381) and in his Kritik der Rechtfertigungsverhaltnisse
[Cri-
tique of the Conditions of Justification], supports this idea that it is this right to partic-
ipate in dialogue that really constitutes the ultimate right.

2
Trying to answer the question of what reason and especially practical reason is, Forst
refers not only to the right to justification but also to the main criteria involved in justi-
fication which according to him are generality and reciprocity. He introduced these cri-
teria in discussions with Thomas Nagel and John Rawls in Contexts of Justice (1994: 65,
75). In order to claim objectivity or validity a justification must meet some requirements.
What is valid must be in the first place generally acceptable. This applies to all claims of
objectivity, whether descriptive or normative.7 The criterion of reciprocity relates more
specifically to normative claims. What is morally valid must not only be generally accep-
table but also reciprocally imputable (ibid.: 66, 205; 2007: 34, 76).8 Moral law not only
demands from each rational being general acceptance, it also demands the acknowledge-
ment that when this valid law applies to me it must also apply to you and others.
It is, I think, very questionable to treat the principle or postulate of generality as a
criterion for truth or validity. And the same applies for reciprocity. It is of course true
that what is objectively valid must be valid for all rational beings who are also reason-
able. Rational beings are those capable of understanding validity-claims; reasonable
beings are those of good will disposed to accept a valid insight and act accordingly.
In an ideal situation in which all rational beings are also reasonable an objectively valid
content must be generally accepted. But it is accepted because it is valid and not the other
way round: it does not become valid because it is generally accepted. This means that
even in an ideal community of rational and reasonable beings, the authority determining
the validity of a claim is not acceptance or agreement but the inner rational power of that
claim. Agreement is a (possible) result of argumentation but not its authority-conferring
element. It can be an explanandum, but it cannot be the explanans of validity.
Agreement can, however, be taken as an indication (which as such is always highly
questionable) but not as a criterion for truth or rightness. Forst is not the first to identify
generality with a general agreement that functions like a criterion. Habermas also inter-
prets the Kantian postulate as a criterion.9 While Habermas uses the word criterion
sporadically, Forst uses it very frequently. This suggests that in his theory the postulate
of generality has become a cornerstone of reason. Being interpreted as a criterion, it is
used as the central pragmatic tool to construct, to corroborate and also to dismantle

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Suarez Muller 1059

specific contents of morality and good life (2007: 1415). Generality becomes a pivotal
element of Forsts theory but this element is corrupted because general agreement is
taken as the authority-conferring element, confusing consensus with truth.
The criterion of reciprocity fully depends on that of generality because only when
something is valid and generally acceptable or capable of being generally accepted, is
it imputable to others. This means that reciprocity is just a specification of the pivotal
criterion of generality. We have seen that a moral claim is not valid because it is gener-
ally acceptable, but that it deserves acceptance because it is valid. This general validity
creates expectations among rational and reasonable beings towards each other. We
expect the other to recognize a right that we consider to be valid and we also accord the
other this right. So, reciprocity is an effect of the principle of generality. Reciprocity is
based on a belief in the universality of a claim. Forst is right that only these general
claims and not arbitrary ones can be expected to be reciprocal. It is indeed unjustified
to project arbitrary personal expectations upon others (2007: 126). But this again shows
that reciprocity just follows from the principle of generality. We may therefore conclude
that if the principle of generality cannot be taken as a criterion of justice then neither can
the principle of reciprocity. The authority determining the normative validity of a claim
or right cannot be the fact of its being reciprocally imputable. What is valid in this sense
must be generally acceptable and reciprocally imputable, but it is not because it is gen-
erally acceptable and reciprocally imputable that it is valid. So, generality and recipro-
city should not be taken as criteria and this means that they cannot be used to deploy a
critical theory of society. If we want to do justice to the principle of justification and to
our right to justification we cannot use them as criteria.
Even if we were to accept these principles as criteria they would be too formal to be
useful. Fascist ideas like the opinion that each individual should stick to his or her nation
and that there should be no mingling between races, could be generally acceptable and
reciprocally ascribable in a fascist world. And in this same world the humanist idea that a
mingling of races should be possible would be neither generally acceptable nor recipro-
cally assignable. Of course, this would be different in a humanist world.10 So, these prin-
ciples are useful as criteria only if we already have an idea of what world or which moral
system is valid. But in that case to use them as criteria would be begging the question.
Forst could counter this argument by saying that it presupposes group-specific
indices, because fascists and humanists are groups, which means that the formulated
argument is not a moral but an ethical argument (1994: 121; 2003: 683). However, the
claims made in this reasoning are not in themselves group-specific, which of course does
not constrain them to be acceptable only to certain groups. We will always find groups in
favour of or against some moral principles. This is even the case for the universal right to
justification; we can find groups (in past and present), or imagine some in the future,
denying or accepting its validity, and this of course does not at all diminish its rightness.
If we take generality and reciprocity not as criteria but as formal principles of reason
and, being principles of practical reason, as formal principles of morality and justice,
then we cannot, I think, deny them a central importance for a theory of distribution. If
a right is established to be valid then all rational beings of good will sharing this insight
must activate this knowledge by transforming insight into action. That is why these prin-
ciples should be central to a theory of distribution. A right that is considered to be valid

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1060 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

must be distributed following the formal principles of justice, which indeed are general-
ity and reciprocity. A fundamental right that is considered as such deserves to be gener-
ally accessible and reciprocally demandable. But these two principles should be joined
by an indispensable third principle of just distribution. This is the formal principle of pri-
ority. Fundamental rights are different from specific rights because they are inherent in
the nature of the instance holding these rights. A police officer, for instance, has specific
rights due to his or her social function. However, the fundamental rights of this police
officer are due to the fact that he or she is a human being. Fundamental rights are there-
fore generally and reciprocally assignable and exigible, and for the distribution of these
rights the sequence of this assignation and exigency is very important: the assistance of
people lacking basic rights, for example, must have priority against the assistance of peo-
ple lacking other rights. This of course means that rights are hierarchically structured
and follow a formal principle of priority. It would harm justice to overlook or deny this
structure of priorities. Although Forst alludes several times to a hierarchy of rights (2007:
2801; 2011: 13455), the principle of priority plays no explicit role in his work.
We can say that Forst, although confusing postulates with criteria, has correctly iden-
tified two major formal principles of justice that need, however, to be complemented by
the principle of priority. The triad generality, priority and reciprocity could be consid-
ered to be a fundamental formal structure of a theory of justice.

3
The principle of justification presupposes the existence of a communicative situation in
which the agents are interested in rational outcomes and also have good will that dis-
poses them on a personal level to be reasonable. Because they are rational and reasonable
they are autonomous; and because they are reasonable and open to each others argu-
ments they are tolerant. Because they are all autonomous and tolerant they are all equal.
And, having a sense of responsibility, they are all disposed to explain their points and to
help others understand them.
Forst does not use the Habermasian ideal speech situation, nor the original designa-
tion ideal community of communication used by Apel, because these terms are too
metaphysical and too reminiscent of systems of idealism (2003: 645). But although he
avoids these terms he does not avoid the concepts behind them. Albrecht Wellmer has
argued that the ideal speech community is in fact a metaphysical concept presupposing
not a real but a general (he even says divine) perspective.11 The consensus reached in
such a community is the agreement of all imaginable beings endowed with reason, exist-
ing everywhere and in all times. This is indeed quite a metaphysical concept, but of
course this cannot be an argument against it because we should first make a distinction
between acceptable (or necessary) and unacceptable (or arbitrary) metaphysical ideas.12
The ideal speech situation is a necessary idea functioning even at the basis of the epis-
temological concept of consensus used in modern science. It is counterfactual because it
can never be fully implemented in our finite societies, and at the same time it is meta-
physical in the sense of presupposing a community of rational and reasonable beings
transcending a specific space and time. The principle of justification presupposes the
ideal of a community of rational and moral subjects who are always ideal citizens guided

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Suarez Muller 1061

by the highest principles of citizenship and considering each other to have symmetrical,
equal rights, to be free and autonomous and to be responsible for each other. Although
this ideal community is counterfactual, it is nevertheless a necessary idea linked to the
principle of justification.
The specific principles inherent in this ideal, such as the principles of freedom, equal-
ity, tolerance, solidarity, altruism, respect, participation, recognition, responsibility, etc.
are in fact the substantial criteria that make a critical theory of power possible. So, it is
not constructivism, but this transcendentalism that constitutes the basis of critical theory.
The principles of the transcendental idea of the ideal speech community are implicitly
used by Forst to compensate for the vacuity of his formal criteria of generality and reci-
procity, but he never explicitly refers to them as part of an ideal situation (1994: 1945;
2007: 106; 2011: 33).
This becomes obvious when Forst states that his supposed criteria (of generality and
reciprocity) can be used for determining the morality of claims on which there is factual
disagreement. In cases of disagreement it is possible, he says, to use the criterion of gen-
erality by placing it on a level in which an agreement might have been possible (2007:
36). Generality now comes to mean a general agreement as far as it is thinkable for all
concerned. Despite factual disagreements, a general agreement might be thinkable. I
would say that this means that we have to be capable of abstracting from the real contexts
of disagreement in order to situate ourselves in a virtual space in which a transcendental
ideal community would accept a certain claim, even when this is not the case in the real
world. Here it becomes clear that although Forst explicitly invokes the criterion of gen-
erality, he is in fact implicitly supporting this criterion with the transcendental idea of the
ideal speech situation and the substantial principles related to it (equality, freedom, tol-
erance, solidarity, etc.). We may therefore say that for a critical theory this ideal world is
in some ways more real than our actual world because we find here principles of justice,
which, unlike the principles of generality and reciprocity, are not formal but substantial.
Although Forst distances himself from metaphysics and from the idea of an ideal
speech community, this transcendental ideal world is in reality the unavowed corner-
stone of his critical theory. His aversion to metaphysics is understandable if it means dis-
tancing philosophy from undeliberated religious presuppositions, but it becomes
irrational when it impedes reflection on our own system of ideas. But metaphysics reap-
pears where it is displaced and so Forst winds up using ontological expressions like the
kingdom of ends or the kingdom of grounds (2007: 38). Critical theory seems to pre-
suppose a kingdom that is not of this world. This is of course the ideal world situation
with the substantial principles related to it. But this is a critical point that could also be
made against other representatives of Frankfurt philosophy. The whole dynamics of rec-
ognition developed by Axel Honneth in my view depends on this same transcendental
idea of an ideal community. Using a term of Dietrich von Hildebrand we might say that
Frankfurt philosophy presupposes a metaphysics of community.13
We may conclude that Forsts philosophy not only uses without acknowledgement the
idea of an ultimate foundation elaborated by Apel, but also the concept of an ideal com-
munity of communication. It is not possible to analyse here all the differences between
the ideal community of Apel and that of Habermas. However, one important distinction
is that in Habermas work the transcendental argument leads to a formal or procedural

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1062 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

demarcation of morality. The ideal speech situation offers no material insights into the
contents of morality but provides a framework circumscribing moral discussions.14 Con-
versely, for Apel the ideal community of communication is a directive (regulative and
constitutive) idea that can be used to structure the real community of communication.15
In fact, Forst wants to provide a substantial theory of justice in this Apelian way (2007:
14). He tries to come to a fundamentum inconcussum (an unshakeable foundation) but he
cannot decide to choose for the transcendental and metaphysical part related to ultimate
foundation and the ideal speech community. Forst seems partially to move back to Apel
without committing himself to his ideas, which, as soon as they are touched upon, pro-
voke an approximation to Habermas again. His theory resembles very much a pendulum
moving back and forth between these two philosophers.
This also explains why Forsts language is often equivocal. Trying to present a sub-
stantial theory of justice reconstructing real and existing rights, he speaks of moral
constructivism which denotes a human invention rather than a discovery of rights
(2007: 1415). This impression cannot be softened by declaring an invention to be
more than an inventio ex nihilo. If there is a moral system behind the words and inter-
pretations of those trying to discover it, then it is inadequate to speak of constructions.
Like Habermas, Forst wants to avoid normative realism, because this would lead to a
theory of moral, ethical and political blueprints. The necessary presuppositions of dis-
course offer a procedural framework for real discursive practices in which specific
rights, values and political ideals would be produced or constructed, without offering
a blueprint of how people must behave or how institutions must be structured. This for-
mal position defended by Habermas is inherited by Forst, who calls this discursive
constructivism (ibid.: 17). But to Forst the procedural frame is constituted by princi-
ples (such as the principle of justification and the criteria of generality and reciprocity)
that he does not want to reduce to formal structures, because, as he says, they have
substantial implications (ibid.: 107, 129, 184, 265). Forst clearly tries to overcome
formalism, but without really succeeding in his attempt because the criteria of general-
ity and reciprocity remain, as we have seen, formal.

IV Good will
The third question related to a theory of discursive reason that Forst considers is Why
follow reason? or Why be reasonable? This is a fundamental question for practical rea-
son because once we have acknowledged what is rational we need to know why this
cognitive aspect should trigger an action in accordance with our insight. Translating this
in terms of practical reason one might say: It is not enough to know what a moral prin-
ciple is, we also need to want to act in conformity with it (2007: 31, 78). This is of course
the point of Kants respect or reverence for the law [Achtung furs Gesetz].16 It concerns
the passage from cognition to volition.
Forst makes a distinction between normative grounds and motivational grounds, the
former being intersubjective and capable of being shared while the latter are just personal
(2007: 40). Like Kant, he defends the internalist position that a moral act is really or veri-
tably moral when it is not motivated by external things like sanctions or rewards (ibid.:
42, 78). I think the passage from cognition to volition is also crucial to the understanding

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Suarez Muller 1063

of Habermas idea of the free power of the best argument. This idea presupposes
that cognitive insights by themselves enact motivational forces. Against the Humean
internalist approach of Bernard Williams, which takes moral grounds to depend on
personal motives, Forst in line with Habermas defends the idea that a real insight in the
universality of (moral) grounds automatically brings about the will to act accordingly
(ibid.: 459).17 A necessary condition is that the insight is real and free. Cognition is not
really true and moral acts are not really moral when they are not based on free will.
If insights and moral acts are imposed then they are not veridical and therefore not per-
sonally true or moral. This shows that the discursive aspects of truth, rightness and vera-
city, as Habermas claimed, are in a certain way interdependent.18
Although for Forst volition is a direct result of real and free insight into the rationality
of a claim, there is still something that must be added to this insight. This something is
good will. Forst starts from Apel who developed this point in his discursive theory fol-
lowing Kant (2007: 54).19 Indeed, a reasoning can be very strong but in order to accept it
and act accordingly there must be a willingness to do so. Only when there is good will are
grounds really accepted and interiorized, and become motives. This is why Kant in his
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals underlines the concept of free will. Good will-
ingness makes it possible for the imperatives of practical reason not to be perceived as
external commandments. Kant puts this in religious terms saying that for the holy and
divine subject the moral imperative is necessarily identical to its own will [notwendig
einstimmig].20
Does this mean that reason involves a psychological aspect that is external to reason
itself? This has been, I think, the central point in modern philosophy from Arthur Scho-
penhauer through Friedrich Nietzsche to postmodernism. The will must precede rational
argument which means that its first ground cannot be reason. Although the claim that the
will is prior to rational argument is in itself rational (showing that reason is inescapable)
there seems to be something non-rational determining whether our insights or moral acts
are real and veridical. In a footnote to the work of Stefan Gosepath (2007: 56) and in
some comments on the work of Ernst Tugendhat (1994: 377; 2007: 57), Forst tries to
defend the priority of reason by showing that if we admit the priority of the will, which
is something subjective, we would not be able to understand the universal and objective
claim of the imperatives of morality (ibid.).21 So, we can say that Forst defends an intern-
alist position although not in the Humean sense in which the will is prior to reason but in
a sense in which the motivation to act in correspondence to a cognitive content is inher-
ent in the insight in that content.
This has some important consequences for Forsts theory of reason. First of all, if we
argue against Humeans, Schopenhauerians and Nietzscheans that the will is not prior to
reason because the will is subjective and reason is general or objective, there is a danger
of creating a gap between objective contents and subjective motivations. There would be
a cleavage between the acknowledgement of a moral law and the motivation to act
accordingly. This would end up in relativism because there would be nothing objective
in a content to determine my motivation. But objective contents (insights) according to
Forst must be able to determine my motivations. There must therefore be an original con-
nection between epistemology (reasons) and psychology (motivations). To close the gap,
a theory of reason must be conceived as belonging to something more general that also

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1064 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

includes motivations. In a discussion with Henrich, Forst moves towards an extension of

the term reason to the larger concept of consciousness [Bewusstsein].22 According to
Henrich, Kants idea of a fact of reason in morality means that an insight into moral law
must be complemented by the will to act accordingly. This is the Achtung furs Gesetz.
But this means that practical reason is part of a larger concept which Forst, following
Henrich, calls moral consciousness [Bewusstsein des Sollens] and which also includes
personal will (2007: 87). So, we may say that the first consequence of Forsts anti-
Humean position is that, motivated by reflections on practical reason, he tends to con-
ceive a theory of reason to be part of a larger theory of consciousness. Re Contexts
of Justice, in a discussion with Michael Theunissen, Forst had already proposed that the
connection between reason and will creates Geist (1996: 163).23 But it is clear that
Forst does not want to return to a Hegelean metaphysics; there can only be Geist in
particular individuals. But, as we said, reason is not particular which means that coupling
will and reason on a particular basis might be insufficient to understand that moral
motivation is in general inherent in reason.
A second consequence of Forsts internalist position is that a real and free insight into
moral law implies that there is something out there which is the content of moral law
and which is not a product or a construction of the subject. The cognitive insight is of
course something happening in the mind but the content of that insight is not a product
of my will. The content is internal but it is independent from the will and in that sense it is
external. Forst distances himself from Platonic interpretations. Moral law cannot be
ontologically interpreted as a reality. But we can discern and recognize [erkennen und
anerkennen] moral law as something objective (2007: 87). It is clear that only if there is
real and free insight into the moral content can there be a will to act accordingly. The will
can be bent towards the moral content, but this already shows that the content cannot be a
product or a construct of the will. This has consequences for Forsts own constructivism
because moral law can never be a construct. It makes no sense to say that moral law is
partly a human product, that its main principles (of justification, generality and recipro-
city) are specifically not constructs whereas the remaining part of morality is. Forsts
internalism shows that he defends a kind of non-ontological moral realism. Although
he wants to see this realism embedded into discursive constructivism or proceduralism,
we have just seen that moral law cannot be defined in such terms.
A third consequence corresponds to the second one. Forst tries to separate moral rea-
lism from an ontological interpretation of the Good, because this would bring the meta-
physical idea of divinity too near. Moral realism is a dimension in our minds. But moral
law is not subjective. Of course, if my mind gets damaged or confused this does not
affect the validity of moral law. But it then becomes almost untenable to say that this
realism has no ontological consequences. Forst tries to interpret this reality or objectivity
of morality as something inherent only in the discursive situation of humanity. Human-
ity, being a discursive community, creates moral law. But here we meet the problem we
considered before. If we consider morality to depend on our decision to take part in dia-
logue, it would then be a product of the will, in this case a common will. But neither rea-
son nor moral law can be the product of the will or any higher authority, as Forst himself
admits, because this would ruin the idea of the autonomy of reason (2007: 56). This
validity belongs to the autonomous realm of reason which has an objectivity of its own

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Suarez Muller 1065

that as I said can be discovered but not constructed. Here also it becomes untenable to say
that moral realism has no ontological consequences.
According to Forst, the fact that humanity is a discursive community makes it possi-
ble to say also that humanity is the last ontological instance to which the moral agent
owes reverence.24 I would concede that human discourse paves a way to reason, to an
insight in the validity of moral law, but it is of course not humanity that confers this
validity, so that the possibility of taking humanity as the ontological instance of moral
law becomes questionable. Forst can only claim that humanity is the last instance to
which we owe reverence, because he already uses terms like humanity and human
reality in a normative sense. He certainly does not mean the bad side of humanity, but
only humanity as far as it is a discursive community of peaceful understanding and tol-
erance. It is clear that he implicitly relates this human community to the principles char-
acterizing the ideal speech situation.
So, in answer to the questions What makes us reasonable?, What makes us respect
moral law?, Forst has humanity as a factual community: The last foundation to
which we can return, is . . . our practical world as a human reality . . . We ourselves are
in the end the authority that demands this [justification] and there seems to be no other
world of pure values existing backstage (2007: 98).25 The authority of moral law comes
from this (life)worldly human reality. Forst solemnly waves away any metaphysical or
ontological interpretation of validity with the words: The kingdom of ends belongs to
this world (ibid.: 99). And in line with Christine Kosgaard he takes humanity to be the
cause of morality [Grund aller Normativitat (ibid.: 90)]. But in fact it is not real human-
ity, but an idealized one, the virtual image of humanity implicit in the idea of an ideal
speech community that determines the basis of moral law. We may therefore say that
there is a kind of repressed idealism in Forsts constructivism. Humanity as a normative
term is what is to be explained (an explanandum) and therefore it cannot be used (as
explanans) to explain the authority of moral law.
We can show with Apel that discourse is inescapable and that discourse implies cer-
tain principles related to an ideal speech situation. We could even call the community
involved in such a situation an ideal humanity. Forst should perhaps have been more
precise and should not have spoken of worldly human reality, but of an idealized
humanity. But even then we would say that it is not this ideal humanity that confers
the authority on moral law, it is not this ideal community that determines the validity
of morality; this ideal human community is ideal precisely because it per definitionem
always respects moral law. It does not create or construct anything. But in fact when
it comes to understanding the authority of moral law Forst does not consider ideal
humanity at all. With Emmanuel Levinas (of whom he presents a very secularized ver-
sion) he believes that moral law derives its authority from the face or presence of the
other (2007: 63, 95).26 Forst thinks that he can use Levinas to understand where the
authority of moral law comes from. But he takes Levinas face of the other in an ame-
taphysical way so adherence to moral law cannot be understood. A confrontation with
the face of the other alone, without any metaphysical depth, cannot be the cause of our
willingness to accept moral law because it would not be possible to understand all the
atrocities humans carry out on each other. We could combine discursive theory with phe-
nomenology by saying that the face of the other is a kind of language making a certain

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1066 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

claim. But then nothing has been won in order to understand where the authority of moral
law comes from.
In the end it seems better to acknowledge that moral law takes its authority from itself,
which means that it is a reality that cannot be reduced to humanity. Thus we end up with
an ontological interpretation of Good. Insight into this reality is indeed not enough for us
to act in compliance with it. There must be good willingness before the face of the other
can affect us. Our willingness must supersede our insight and this seems only to be pos-
sible once we recognize ourselves in the moral norm that belongs to an independent
realm. Religions have called such recognition conversion. In fact such recognition is
an identification with something as belonging to the same source. To be convinced by
a moral insight means to recognize reasons we identify with, we consider to be ours
or to belong to us.

V Conclusion
To summarize, we can say that the work of Rainer Forst inconsequently moves back and
forth between transcendentalism and constructivism. This ambiguity appears in all the
main argumentative lines developed in his work. When trying to answer the question
Why reason? ( 2) he tends towards a transcendental theory of ultimate foundation and
towards the idea of an ultimate fact of reason. Instead of admitting that this theory
amounts to transcendentalism, Forst declares that his method relates only to construc-
tions embedded in lifeworld contexts. Answering the question What is reason? ( 3)
Forst again clearly tends towards a transcendental theory of derivation of norms from
first irreducible principles. But then he again turns back to constructivism or procedur-
alism denying the possibility of strong derivations because these are always embedded in
particular contexts. He develops his right to justification as a fundamental right capable
of giving a rational foundation to more specific rights, but then again he turns to con-
structivism and declares this right to be a mere procedural tool of lifeworld argumenta-
tion. And finally in his reflections on the good will necessary for rational action ( 4) he
first tends to determine the authority of moral law in a transcendental way, claiming a
separate reality for morality, but then he again hangs this authority on the lifeworld exis-
tence of humanity. I have tried to show that all these ambivalences and this continuous
back and forth between transcendentalism and proceduralism, substantialism and con-
structivism, constitute the major difficulty of Forsts theory of justice. The origin of these
ambivalences is Forsts ambition to create a non-metaphysical, wholly secular theory of
justice, which amounts to a position denying its own transcendentalism and metaphysical
presuppositions.

Notes
1. Joel Anderson, The Third Generation of the Frankfurt School, Intellectual History Newslet-
ter 22 (2000): 4961. Anderson has a slightly different view on the generational progress of
the Frankfurt School emphasizing its continuity. In my view Habermas work constitutes such
a strong rupture that it is possible to think of a Habermasian School having its own genera-
tional progress.

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Suarez Muller 1067

2. I am going to quote from and refer to the German originals because not all the books have been
translated into English. Rainer Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt [Tolerance in conflict] (Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003); Rainer Forst, Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung [The right to justifi-
cation] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007); Rainer Forst, Kritik der Rechtfertigungs-
verhaltnisse
[Critique of the conditions of justification] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
2011).
3. In Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit [Contexts of justice] Forst is more explicit about the influence
of ONeills interpretation on his own view of Kant (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), pp.
28993, 300; English-language edn, Rainer Forst, Contexts of Justice, trans. J. M. M. Farrell
[Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). See Onora
ONeill, Constructions of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
4. About the possibility of several ultimately grounded sentences, see K.-O. Apel, Auseinander-
setzungen [Discussions] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998), p. 159. Also V. Hosle, Die
Krise der Gegenwart [The crisis of modernity] (Munich: Beck, 1990), p. 174.
5. Anstelle des Verweises auf ein solches Faktum muss jedoch die Rekonstruktion des mora-
lischen Standpunktes . . . vermittels einer nicht-metaphysischen, rekursiven und kontextimma-
nenten Analyse der Geltungskriterien moralischer Grunde erfolgen (Forst, Das Recht auf
Rechtfertigung, 2007: 62).
6. We could speak here, with Maurice Blanchot, of a communaute inavouable [an unavowable
community]. See M. Blanchot, La Communaute inavouable [The unavowable community]
(Paris: Minuit, 1983).
7. See T. Nagel, Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy, Philosophy and Public Affairs 16(3)
(1987): 21540 (229).
8. Forst (Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit, 1994: 163) introduces this criterion of reciprocity in a dis-
cussion of Thomas Nagels Equality and Partiality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
9. J. Habermas, Moralbewutsein und kommunikatives Handeln [Moral consciousness and com-
municative action] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), pp. 53, 79.
10. The examples can be varied on demand. According to the old principle volenti non fit
iniuiria [no injury is done to those who consent] we could say that in a sado-masochist world
sadistic acts would be generally and reciprocally acceptable.
11. A. Wellmer, Ethik und Dialog [Ethics and dialogue] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986),
pp. 925.
12. Both Forsts and Habermas concepts of metaphysics are too little differentiated, confusing
different types of metaphysics like religious systems, rational conjectures and rational recon-
structions of transcendental ideas.
13. D. von Hildebrand, Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft [Metaphysics of community] (Regensburg:
Habbel, 1975[1930]).
14. Habermas, Moralbewutsein und kommunikatives Handeln (1983), pp. 979 and Faktizitat
und Geltung [Between facts and norms] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), p. 11.
15. K.-O. Apel, Diskurs und Verantwortung [Discourse and responsibility] (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1988), p. 9.
16. I. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten [Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals]
(Darmstadt: WBG, 1983[1956]), A 14.
17. B. Williams, Internal and External Reasons, in R. Shafer-Landau and T. Cuneo (eds) Foun-
dations of Ethics: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 2928.

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1068 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(10)

18. J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns [The theory of communicative action],
vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 45, 6671, and Vorstudien und Erganzungen

[Studies and supplements] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 1418.
19. K.-O. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie [Transformation of philosophy], vol. 2 (Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973), pp. 236, 240, 249.
20. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, A 39.
21. See S. Gosepath, Aufgeklartes Eigeninteresse [Enlightened self-interest] (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1992), p. 339, and E. Tugendhat, Vorlesungen uber Ethik [Lectures on ethics]
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993), pp. 45, 80.
22. D. Henrich, Der Begriff der sittlichen Einsicht und Kants Lehre vom Faktum der Vernunft
[The concept of moral insight and kants doctrine of the fact of reason], in G. Prauss, Kant. Zur
Deutung seiner Theorie von Erkennen und Handeln [Kant: interpretations of his theory of
knowledge and action] (Cologne: Kiepenheuer, 1973), pp. 22354.
23. See Michael Theunissen about Hegel: Die verdrangte Intersubjektivitat in Hegels Philosophie
des Rechts [The Repressed Intersubjectivity in Hegels philosophy of right], in D. Henrich
and R. P. Horstmann, Hegels Philosophie des Rechts [Hegels philosophy of right] (Stuttgart:
Kiepenheuer, 1982.
24. Ohne einen Gott, der dem Menschen die Heiligkeit des Gesetzes . . . verburgt, kann nur der
andere Mensch . . . der Grund der moralischen Verpflichtung sein (Forst, Das Recht auf
Rechtfertigung, 2007: 89).
25. Das Letzte, worauf man zuruckgreifen
kann, ist daher . . . unsere praktische Welt als eine
menschliche Realitat . . . . Die Autoritat,
die dies von uns verlangt, sind aber letztlich wir
selbst, keine weitere Welt der Werte an sich scheint dort im Hintergrund zu stehen (ibid.,
2007: 97).
26. E. Levinas, Totalite et infini [Whole and infinite] (Paris: Kluwer, 1971), pp. 7880, 2368.

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