Muguerza, Javier - The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

100 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Tanner</strong> <strong>Lectures</strong> on Human Valuesestablish coactive norms, because no one can know - at least notat present - to what degree it is possible to reduce aggression andachieve a voluntary recognition of the ‘principle of discourse,’ . . .only in this latter case, which for the moment is no more than aconstruct, would morality become strictly universal, in which caseit would also cease to be ‘mere morality’ in the sense of the usualdistinction between law and morality.” 48(<strong>The</strong>re is no need toinsist on the Hegelian overtones of these paragraphs, where -rather than bringing ethics closer to law-it would be moreproper to speak of their mixture, with politics included, once theaforementioned mere morality had been overcome.)Habermas has reiterated his viewpoint in a recent essay-“Wie ist Legitimität durch Legalität möglich?” (1987)- where,in the course of attempting to answer the question “how can legitimacybe achieved through legality?” the general sense of his positionon the problems of grounding that we have been discussingis considerably clarified. 49Habermas takes them up in the process of defending the thesisthat the autonomization of law-effected in modern times withthe help of rational law (the Kantian Vernunftrecht), whichrendered possible the introduction of differences into the previouslysolid block of morality, law, and politics-cannot meana complete divorce between law and morality, on the one hand,or politics, on the other, since law that has become positive cannotdo without its inner relationship with either of the two. Habermas,then, considers Austin’s or Kelsen’s concept of juridical autonomy(to which we referred a short while ago) indefensible, and hethen asks how the aforementioned autonomization of law waseffected. <strong>The</strong> turning point comes with modern rational law,which-in connection with the theory of the social contract48 J. Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme in Spätkapitalismus (Frankfurt am Main,1973), 87.49 Habermas, “Wie ist Legitimität durch Legalität möglich?” Kritische Justiz 20(1987): 1-16.