Discourse Ethics and Liberal Political Culture

Abstract

Discourse ethics and the liberal political culture reciprocally presuppose each other as laws need to be legitimized through discourse in a democracy. Habermas' discourse ethics attempts to provide a practical solution to the problems of the legitimation of normative claims in pluralistc societies. It does this by understanding deliberative democracy as being situated within the life-world of its participants. through which the consensus of validity claims can be carried out. This understanding of the role of discourse ethics will be applied to the situation in Indonesia and the Philippines.