Between measurability and immeasurability : the politics of care in Habermas and Derrida

This study considers whether the tradition of moral universalism is correct to dissociatethe asymmetrical perspective of "care" from the principle of impartial treatment for allor whether there is in fact a legitimate and indeed necessary place for the careperspective when addressing questions of universal justice. In examining this question,the study utilises the writings of Jiirgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida as aphilosophical backdrop, according particular attention to each thinker's engagementwith the principle of "measure." It notes that unlike Derrida, Habermas sets forth acategorical distinction between instrumental measure (oriented towards the world ofobjects) and noninstrumental measure (appropriate to the realm of the social). Fromthis vantage point, not every effort to "count" is as injurious to "difference" as Derridaalleges. In fact, in distinguishing "communicative reason" from "instrumental reason,"Habermas is able to envisage a type of measurable equality that is facilitative of humanflourishing rather than a hindrance to it. In failing to bifurcate the principle of measurein these terms, Derrida's deconstructive care ethics invites the prospect of not onlymoral relativism but also of a "re-enchanted" conception of nature and the knowledgeof nature.The thesis appeals to the dialogue that the two thinkers have initiated in aneffort to lay the groundwork for a reconstructed critical theory that is moreaccommodative of the gesture of unlimited care for a single unrepresentable individual than Habermas's discourse-ethical project has being willing to countenance. Yet in sodoing, it is at pains to assure that such an intervention does not undermine thecategorical primacy accorded to universalistic moral rights and duties in thephilosophical tradition of Kant. Although it finds the recognition theory advanced byAxel Honneth to be encumbered by a number of conceptual difficulties, the thesispositions Honneth's framework as a promising launching point for such areconstruction