Muguerza, Javier - The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

106 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Tanner</strong> <strong>Lectures</strong> on Human Valuessought (even “truths by consensus”) and the best refutation of acognitivist position such as this is the one developed by PaulLorenzen, who encapsulates it in the precept “You ought to seekonly the truth,” where the “ought” removes us from the cognitivistperspective and places us in a normative and, finally, anethical one. 63But, in fact, there would be no problem - that is,no new problem-if, for the phrase “cooperative search fortruth,” we simply substituted “search for a consensus.” With thecharacterization understood this way, we can also understandbetter why Habermas wants to consider “juridical proceduralism”as continuous with ethical proceduralism. “It is not a question,”he tells us, “of confusing law and ethics (Freilich dürfen dieGrenzen zwischen Recht und Moral nicht vermischt werden) .” 64As institutionalized procedures, the juridical ones may aspire to a“completeness” that would not be attainable for ethical procedures,whose rationality is always an “incomplete rationality”that depends on the perspectives of the interested parties. Not tomention the greater degree of “publicity” of juridical procedures,compared with the “privacy” of an internalized and autonomousmorality; or the instrumental condition of law when used toachieve this or that political goal, which locates law “betweenethics and politics.” But, be that as it may, there is also, he warnsus, an “ethics of political responsibility,” and law and ethics “notonly complement each other but one can even speak of theirmutual coupling,” such that “procedural law and proceduralizedmorality could control one another.” 65But what is the ultimatemeaning of this “control one another”?As he himself says, Habermas does not confuse ethics andlaw, but he does mix them when he speaks not only of their“complementarity” (Ergänzung) but also of their “mutual cou-63P. Lorenzen, Normative Logic and Ethics (Mannheim, 1969), 74.64 Habermas, “Wie ist Legitimität,” 13.65 Ibid., 14-15.