1. Moral Philosophy Based on the Principle of U and D 陈太明 外国哲学1
beyond the principle of universalization(U) 2
"Post-conventional morality " 3
The principle of discourse ethics(D)

2. In 1970s and 1980s, Habermas began to develop the theory of communicative action and universal pragmatics that is now the basis of all his theorising.
In Habermas's opinion, humans are presented as fundamentally communicative beings.
Habermas analyses the way in which ordinary people use their communicative skills to create and maintain social relationships.
He suggests that in making any utterances, the speaker raises four validity claims--this is to say that there are four levels at which the speaker can be challenged by any listener.

3. Four validity claims Truth Sincereness Rightness Acceptability
The truth of the utterance can be questioned. Any utterance will assume certain facts about the world around he or she, and these assumptions may be false.
The speaker can be challenged as to the meaningfulness of what he or she says.
Sincereness
Rightness
The speaker's right to say what he or she says may be challenged.
The sincerity of the speaker may be questioned.

4. From this model, Habermas suggests that, as underpinning actual conversations and discussions, there is the presupposition of and ideal speech situation, in which every participant in a conversation is free to challenge what is said by any other speaker.

5. What is "ideal speech situation"?
Andrew Edgar gives an simple and accurate representation "the ideal speech situation" can be understand as the projection of the conditions for a perfect disscussion.
In Habermas's early accounts ,what is important about these conditions is that they entail that there is no imbalance of power between the participants to the conversation.

6. This means that nobody can force his opinions upon anyone else,and can not exclude somebody from the discussion,or prevent them raising problems or challenges. If such conditions held, then Habermas states that any agreement that the participants came to would be based upon the force of rational argument alone ."[Habermas:The Key Concepts, P64]
In my view, it can be summarized as follow concepts: freedom, equality, democracy, being unforced, and the most important is it's "orientation toward reaching understanding" [<MCCA>P133].

7. All discussed above constitute the basis for Haberma's, which is named "discourse ethics" by him. From the perspective of the history of moral philosophy, we can raise a question to help us to master the main meaning of his essay, that is, what Harbermas want to say or what he attempts to stand up for ?
According to this essay , we can summarize as follows:

8. (1)beyond the principle of universalization(U)
At the outset of this essay, Habermas writes: "discourse ethics advances Universalization and thus very strong theses, but the status it claims for those theses is relatively weak. Essentially, the justification involves two steps.

9. First, a principle of Universalization(U) is introduced
First, a principle of Universalization(U) is introduced. It serves as a rule of argumentation in practical discourses.
Second , this is justified in terms of the substance of the pragmatic presuppositions of argumentation as such in connection with an explication of the meaning of normative claims to validity." [<MCCA>P116]

10. We know Habermas is a thinker derives from Kantian tradition, but at the same time he is not a complete Kantian. He objects to Kant's rigid universalism and formalism, which forces human beings to act under categorical imperative. In the next section, Habermas analyses and criticizes L.Kohlberg's Theory with his own communicative action theory to justify his own moral philosophy. With this, Harbermas develops the moral theory of his own , and he extends the concepts of "post-conventional morality ".

11. （2）"Post-conventional morality "
Kohlberg's moral theory distinguishes three levels of moral judgment, and each level contains two stages respectively.
It can be listed as follows:

12. Kohlberg's six stages of moral development
Stage 1: the stage of punishment and obedience
Stage 2: the stage of individual instrumental purpose and exchange
Level A: preconventional level
Stage 3: the stage of mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships,and conformity
Stage 4: the stage of social system and conscience maintenance
Level B: conventional level
Level C: postconventional and principled level
Stage 5: the stage of prior rights and social contract or utility Description of the contents
Stage 6: the stage of universal ethical principles.

13. From the program above, we can see that Kohlberg's moral stages have undergone a development of regularity,from autism to Contractarianism,from individual egoism to mutual altruism.

14. Harbermas agrees to Kohlberg's moral development logic in principle, and he borrowed the concept "post-conventional morality" from Kohlberg. Harmbermas assumes that a good action, at this stage, is now one that conforms to to accepted rules, and a bad one breaks those rules. It is only at the post-conventional stage that the adolescent being to require justification of the rules. The adolescent therefore beings to distinguish between the mere fact that there is a moral convention, and the normative question as to whether that convention should exist .

15. "Harbermas uses this term to characterise moral decision making, not merely at the level of the individual, but also at the level of societies as a whole. " [key words: p109] As a result, Harbermas brings about a great turn: from Kantian monologic reasoning to intersubjective reasoning. Morality is not based on pure reason of individual but on "communicative reason". This turn makes a significant sense to modern society and also the same to the history of moral philosophy. Now, Harbermas move on to the next important concept , discourse ethics principle, which is the most distinctive composition of his theory.

16. (3)The principle of discourse ethics(D)
U alone is not enough. There are many ways to bring about a universal consensus,and not all need be moral , or, more to be point, not all need appeal to our ability to communicate. The problem with the Kantian method of resolving moral problems is that it does not actually require people to talk to each other. D specifies that normative validity is dependent upon agreement of all as participants in a practical discourse,which is to say that only agreement that is based on truly open and rational debate counts.

17. To spell out the nature of discourse a little more precisely,this entails that all competent speakers and actors are allowed to take part; everyone can question anything that is said , and may introduce new assertions as they see fit , and no speaker may be coerced into withholding or withdrawing their participation.[<MCCA>P89]

18. Basically , Harbermas provides a process of reaching moral norms rather than some concrete contents. In his own words , "discourse ethics does not set up substantive orientations. Instead , it establishes a procedure based on presuppositions and designed to guarantee the impartiality of the process of judging. "[<MCCA>P122].

19. Throughout the whole essay, now let's go back to the original point:
What Harbermas want to say or what he attempts to stand up for ?
I believe we can come to a conclusion at least,that is, he want to use his own communicative action thoery to construct the universal basis of actual moral practice, not in the style of U,also not it of D, but the combine of the two points.

20. 感谢您的关注