In a recently translated piece at The Utopian, Jürgen Habermas responds to Paolo Flores d’Arcais’s “Eleven Theses Against Habermas“:
The fact that the ‘Eleven Theses Against Habermas’ (which I have only been able to read in English translation) were published a while ago makes it easier for me to look beyond their bellicose rhethoric. As I was reading the piece, I frequently asked myself who the author might possibly be addressing. After all, we both start from the premise that a contitutional democracy guarantees the same fundamental rights to all citizens. Such a legal system punishes discrimination against homosexuals, the practice of female genital mutilation, domestic violence, forced marriage, polygamy, the refusal of medical aid and even more so paedophilia or cannibalism. Hence every interpretation of the separation of church and state which would require toleration of such crimes is precluded from the beginning. Paolo Flores d’Arcais, who should grant me this logical insight, should therefore have asked himself what his misunderstanding is based on.
He should have known that we also share his second premise (which he develops in his last thesis), according to which a democratic constitution remains just a facade so long as the material and cultural conditions for an inclusive, equitable and autonomous use of the rights of participation is not fulfilled. The systematically induced external costs of failing markets and bureaucratic intervention must not be imposed upon those social groups which in any case cannot defend themselves. Equal rights of membership in a polity are irreconcilable with the growing social inequality which we see reflected, among other things, in the divisions of our own society. To safeguard the political and cultural preconditions for a political participation based on truly equal rights, however, is just as important as questions of social policy. This point—which can explain the attack on my rather trivial proposals for the public role of religion—is what I presume to be the source of the first divergence of our views.
Read the full response here.