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

XXWilliam Rehgfailure to appreciate this tension that leads to a certain onesidednessin many contemporary political theories. The secondchapter gives us a sense ofHabermas' s course by charting the shoalson which some leading alternatives have run aground. To close thisfirst section, then, I briefly indicate Habermas's path between thetwo main alternatives.Between Rawls and LuhmannMany Anglo-American readers will already be familiar with one ofthese alternatives, John Rawls's theory ofjustice.16 As much as heagrees with Rawls, Habermas finds that the highly normative theoryofjustice does not sufficiently appreciate the social facticity confrontingconstitutional ideals. To be sure, Rawls's concern withoverlapping consensus and the social stability of his conception ofjustice does attempt to show how this conception can find acceptancewithin a particular cultural context. Rawls's theory can plausiblyappeal to the fact that constitutional democracies haveflourished in societies in which certain political traditions andideas offairness are widely shared. But this still ignores the problemof how legal institutions can realize such ideals in contexts shapedby powerful interests and complex functional requirements. And,to judge from the pessimism of many sociological observers ofdemocracy, appeals to cultural ideals alone will not answer theproblems posed by welfarism, bureaucratization, powerful corporateinterests, an apathetic citizenry, and so forth.The other main alternative, the systems theory ofNiklas Luhmann,will probably be less familiar to English-speaking readers. In fact,Luhmann is one of the most influential social theorists in Germanytoday (along with Habermas himself) and, judging by translationsof his work, he is not completely unknown to English-speakingaudiences.17 Nonetheless, a lengthier introduction to his approach,beginning with some historical background, is called for.In the social-contract tradition going back to Thomas Hobbes,which Habermas also refers to under the umbrella of "rational" or"modern" natural law, 18 the legal constitution of society on the basisof individual rights appeared as a plausible extension of thecontract relationship that governed the bourgeois economy. The