Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

64Chapter 2in either self-interest or morality, for setting aside their convictions aboutthe good life when they act politically. I argue that liberals should rejectthis restricted view of their theory. They should try on the contrary toconnect ethics and politics by constructing a view about the nature orcharacter of the good life that makes liberal political morality seemcontinuous rather than discontinuous with appealing philosophicalviews about the good life.33In Dworkin's own project, however, we can discern the dilemmain which every ethic claiming universal validity inevitably getscaught today under conditions of postmetaphysical thinking.Namely, as long as such an ethic makes substantive statements, itspremises remain confined to the context in which particularhistorical or even personal interpretations of the self and the worldarose. As soon as it is sufficiently formal, however, its substance atbest consists in elucidating the procedure of ethical discoursesaimed at reaching self-understanding. We do not need to go intothis here.34 In any case, an ethical theory does not lie at the levelwhere it could make up for the weakness of Rawls's attempt tobridge the chasm between ideal theoretical demands and socialfacts. The resistant reality with which critical reason wants to keepin touch is not just, and not even primarily, made up of the. pluralism of conflicting life ideals and value orientations, of competingcomprehensive doctrines, but of the harder material ofinstitutions and action systems.At the first stage of theory construction, Rawls is already concernedwith questions of how one can legally implement theprinciples of justice that were first grounded in abstracto. And hedoes not fail to recognize the aspect of enforcement by whichcoercive law is externally coupled with its addressees' behavior-incontrast to morality, which can appeal to the sense ofjustice alone.But the relation between positive law and political justice stands inneed of further clarification. Rawls concentrates on questions ofthe legitimacy oflaw without an explicit concern for the legal formas such and hence for the institutional dimension of a law backed bysanctions. What is specific to legal validity, the tension betweenfacticity and validity inhabiting law itself, does not come into view.This also foreshortens our perception of the external tensionbetween the claim to the legitimacy oflaw and social facticity. The