Democracy and Ethics: Dialogical Proposals at Stake

Ana Pedro^1, and Carlos Maia²

¹Departmento de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

²Retired Associate Professor, Braga, Portugal

Cite this paper:
Ana Pedro and Carlos Maia. Democracy and Ethics: Dialogical Proposals at Stake. American Journal of Educational Research. 2023; 11(8):479-487. doi: 10.12691/education-11-8-1

Abstract

The abandonment of moral and ideal normative sources has given way to proposals for an ethics – or, rather, morality – of recourse. Underlying these proposals seem to be the democratic model of politics and the quantitative model of experimental science. Designated globally as dialogical ethics, the proposals of Rawls and Habermas are based on this model. But this model is in itself contradictory, because it gives the majority the right to decide about all those involved, since it is utopian to think of participation – much less equal participation – by all members of a community. On the other hand, the interest of a community, no matter how large it may be, cannot be considered without a connection to the whole of Humanity and to an ideal of improvement. Quantity is not a moral criterion, much less an ethical one. Morality is sociocratic because it is a norm that is phenomenologically 'impositive'; and ethics is democratic, but only as a universal duty of improvement originating and proposed in the will of each one, and not because it derives from 'agreement' between interested parties.

Keywords:
Procedural Ethics Democracy Morality Perfectibility Education Ethical Sustainability Anthropeugogy

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