View source for Between Facts and Norms

{{Short description|Monograph by Jürgen Habermas}}
{{More citations needed|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox book
 | name = Between Facts and Norms
 | image = File:Between Facts and Norms (German edition).jpg
 | caption = Cover of the German edition
 | author = [[Jürgen Habermas]]
 | country = Germany
 | language = German
 | subject = [[Deliberative democracy]]
 | published = 1992
 | media_type = Print
 | pages = 
 | isbn = 
| oclc=
}}

'''''Between Facts and Norms''''' ({{langx|de|Faktizität und Geltung}}) is a 1992 book on [[Deliberative democracy|deliberative politics]] by the [[German people|German]] [[political philosopher]] [[Jürgen Habermas]]. The culmination of the project that Habermas began with ''[[The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere]]'' in 1962, it represents a lifetime of political thought on the nature of [[democracy]] and [[law]].

==Summary and background==
''Between Facts and Norms'' offers an original reconstruction of the [[philosophy of language]] (drawing on the author's ''Theory of Communicative Action'', first published in 1981), a theory of [[jurisprudence]], an understanding of [[Constitution#Governmental constitutions|constitutional]] theory, reflections on [[civil society]] and democracy, and an attempt to construct a new [[paradigm]] of politics that goes beyond, but without discarding, the [[Liberalism|liberal tradition]].<ref>Cf. Thomas Kupka, Jürgen Habermas' diskurstheoretische Reformulierung des klassischen Vernunftrechts, ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23999017?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Kritische Justiz]'' 27 (1994), pp. 461-469, highlighting the continuity with the natural law tradition in Habermas' ''Faktizität und Geltung'', 1992. This continuity was controversial at the time, see the reply by Habermas' PhD-student [[:de:Klaus Günther (Jurist)|Klaus Günther]], Diskurstheorie des Rechts oder liberales Naturrecht in diskurstheoretischem Gewande?, ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23999018?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Kritische Justiz]'' 27 (1994), pp. 470-487.</ref> At the heart of the book is a reconsideration of the relation between the [[philosophy of law]] and [[Political science|political theory]].<ref name=ras>[http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9804/reviews/rasmussen.html Books in Review: ''Between Facts and Norms'' by Prof. David M. Rasmussen of Boston College]</ref>

Criticized for his "[[discourse ethics]]" first propounded in 1990, Habermas, in this book, attempts to draw out the political, legal, and institutional implications of his theory, asserting that [[discourse ethics]] ought to be complemented by a theory of [[socialization]] that accounts for its [[institutionalization]]. ("Discourse ethics" is Habermas's attempt to explain the [[Universalism|universal]] and [[Obligation|obligatory]] nature of [[morality]] by evoking the universal obligations of [[communicative rationality]].)

Habermas contends that law is the primary medium of social integration in modern society, and is power that extracts obedience from its subjects. As power alone cannot grant it its legitimacy in modern society, law derives its validity from the [[consent of the governed]].

Habermas further accommodates his critics on the role of law by making a distinction between [[ethics]] and morality. In a modern pluralist culture, he argues, normative issues should be separated from issues of the good life. Only when various ethical traditions come into conflict with one another, as they inevitably do in a modern pluralist culture, do normative issues arise that have implications for everyone. In Habermas' deliberative paradigm, law stabilizes society, but only through the universal voice of democracy.<ref name=ras />

''Between Facts and Norms'' concludes with a proposal for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the [[Dichotomy|dichotomies]] that have afflicted modern political theory from its inception, and that still underlie current controversies between so-called [[Liberalism|liberal]]s and [[Republicanism|republican]]s.

==See also==
*{{annotated link|Facticity|Facticity (German: ''Faktizität'')}}
*{{annotated link|Fact-value distinction}}
*{{annotated link|Is-ought problem}}
*{{annotated link|Post-truth}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/habermas/index.htm Jürgen Habermas] at [http://www.marxists.org Marxists.org]

{{Jürgen Habermas}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1996 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Books in political philosophy]]
[[Category:German non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Works by Jürgen Habermas]]