Sense of Appropriateness

Klaus Günther is Professor of Law at the University of Frankfurt.

• Translators IntroductionAuthor's PrefaceAuthor's IntroductionPart One: The Problem of Application in Discourse Ethics1. Justification and Application on the Presupposition of a Semantic Principle of Universalizability2. Justification and Application on the Presupposition of the Moral Principle (U)3. Two Versions of the Universalization Principle4. Application as Discourse5. Can Justification Discourses be Replaced by Application Discourses?6. The Application of the Moral PrinciplePart Two: The Problem of the Application of Norms n the Development of Moral Consciousness1. The "Free Application" of Indeterminate Norms as a Result of Societal Rationalization Processes (Durkheim)Excursus: The Emergence and Following of Rules in Social Processes1. The Emergence of Situation-independent Meanings in Social Situations (Mead)2. Rule-following as a "Custom" (Wittgenstein)2. Mead's Draft of a Universalist Ethics as a Method for the Constructive Formation of Appropriate Hypotheses3. The Differentiation Between Justification and Application at the Postconventional Level of Moral Consciousness (Piaget and Kohlberg)3.1 The Development of the Relation Between Equity and Equality in Piaget3.2 A Provisional Developmental Scenario3.3 The Development of the Relation Between Equity and Equality in Kohlberg4. Is There a Contextualist Alternative to "Stage 6"?—The Discovery that "it depends"5. Is Postconventional Moral Consciousness Rigoristic?6. Summary: Three Levels in the Development of Types of ApplicationExcursus: "Phronesis" as an Example of Context-bound Application1. The Aristotelian Theory2. Appropriate Understanding: HermeneuticsPart Three: Appropriateness Argumentation in Morality1. The Problem of a Conflict of Norms: Prima Facie and Definitive Norms2. Appropriateness Argumentation as an Experimental Procedure and as a Moral Learning Process3. Elements of a Logic of Appropriateness Argumentation3.1 Complete Description of a Situation3.2 Norm CoherencePart Four: Appropriateness Argumentation in Law1. Discourse Ethics' Reasons for the Distinction Between Law and Morality2. Systems Theory's Concept of Law2.1 Double Contingency2.2 Law as an Autopoietic System: Differentiation into Code and Programming3. The Indeterminacy of Legal Rules3.1 Hermeneutical Models3.2 "Integrity": In Search of the Best Justification (Dworkin)NotesBibliographyIndex

"Does the justification of moral principle or rule of law justify its application to particular cases? This is the issue in Klaus Günther's The Sense of Appropriateness. It is handled with great skill and critical insight. This is an admirable performance which makes a serious advance in the Frankfurt approach to the study of rational practical discourse." — D. N. MacCormick, Center for Criminology and the Social and Philosophical Study of Law, The University of Edinburgh