Translators Introduction

Author's Preface

Author's Introduction

Part One: The Problem of Application in Discourse Ethics

1. Justification and Application on the Presupposition of a Semantic Principle of Universalizability

2. Justification and Application on the Presupposition of the Moral Principle (U)

3. Two Versions of the Universalization Principle

4. Application as Discourse

5. Can Justification Discourses be Replaced by Application Discourses?

6. The Application of the Moral Principle

Part Two: The Problem of the Application of Norms n the Development of Moral Consciousness

1. The "Free Application" of Indeterminate Norms as a Result of Societal Rationalization Processes (Durkheim)

Excursus: The Emergence and Following of Rules in Social Processes

1. The Emergence of Situation-independent Meanings in Social Situations (Mead)

2. Rule-following as a "Custom" (Wittgenstein)

2. Mead's Draft of a Universalist Ethics as a Method for the Constructive Formation of Appropriate Hypotheses

3. The Differentiation Between Justification and Application at the Postconventional Level of Moral Consciousness (Piaget and Kohlberg)

3.1 The Development of the Relation Between Equity and Equality in Piaget

3.2 A Provisional Developmental Scenario

3.3 The Development of the Relation Between Equity and Equality in Kohlberg

4. Is There a Contextualist Alternative to "Stage 6"?—The Discovery that "it depends"

5. Is Postconventional Moral Consciousness Rigoristic?

6. Summary: Three Levels in the Development of Types of Application

Excursus: "Phronesis" as an Example of Context-bound Application

1. The Aristotelian Theory

2. Appropriate Understanding: Hermeneutics

Part Three: Appropriateness Argumentation in Morality

1. The Problem of a Conflict of Norms: Prima Facie and Definitive Norms

2. Appropriateness Argumentation as an Experimental Procedure and as a Moral Learning Process

3. Elements of a Logic of Appropriateness Argumentation

3.1 Complete Description of a Situation

3.2 Norm Coherence

Part Four: Appropriateness Argumentation in Law

1. Discourse Ethics' Reasons for the Distinction Between Law and Morality

2. Systems Theory's Concept of Law

2.1 Double Contingency

2.2 Law as an Autopoietic System: Differentiation into Code and Programming

3. The Indeterminacy of Legal Rules

3.1 Hermeneutical Models

3.2 "Integrity": In Search of the Best Justification (Dworkin)

Notes

Bibliography

Index