Practical Reason and the Justification of Norms. Fundamental Problems in the Construction of a Theory of Practical Justification

Abstract

The question whether reason is or can be practical, and accordingly whether our practice is or can be made reasonable is, on the one hand, as old as all intellectual efforts towards an orientation of our life. On the other hand, in the form in which I shall discuss the matter, it expresses a particularly modern problem.¹ We find at the beginnings of our philosophical tradition — in the fragments of the Pre-Socratics, in the works of the Sophists and in the “classical” Greek philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — the theme of the good life and just conduct at the centerpoint of their inquiries. But the question of practical reason as an inquiry into the First principle of a reason-grounded practice arises as such only when the demand for the legitimation of the imposed norms of common life attains a position of importance in itself. The critical occurrence is then no longer, as in antiquity, only the relief of a divinely grounded legitimation by a legitimation under an obligation to the common responsibility of the citizens. It is rather the act of legitimation without a common basis, without a mutually imputed understanding of life and actions.