Abstract

This dissertation examines the intersecting concerns of feminist theory and discourse ethics to make an argument for the ability of discursive universalism to include the concerns of women. Feminists have raised a number of objections to the cognitive and universal claims of moral proceduralism. These objections include arguments regarding the blindness of so-called "neutral" procedures to persons and contexts, the tension in the universality of an abstract and cognitivist morality which fails to value women's moral perceptions, the failure to acknowledge difference which results in a conception of solidarity in terms of the sameness of "us" over and against a group of "them," also depicted as fundamentally the same, and, finally, the restriction of the notion of universality to the public sphere in contrast to a particular sphere of the private. I argue that Jurgen Habermas's discourse ethics can provide a procedural account of morality which does not fall prey to these criticisms and which, in fact, can help us move beyond them. ;Accordingly, in examining the benefits of discourse ethics for feminist theory, I address recent work on application discourses which extends discourse ethics beyond justification to take into account the appropriateness of given norms in particular situations. I argue that the concept of application discourses helps us to resituate discourse ethics in the contextual realm of the everyday which has been stressed in feminist ethics. Additionally, my argument for discourse ethics stresses the limitations of the theory and its admitted fallibalism: all discourses are subject to the limits of language and our ability to create and use language in a way which enables us to understand, express and represent our needs. ;Taking up the importance of feminist theory for discourse ethics, I address the spaces for difference which appear in Habermas's theory once it is interpreted through a feminist lens. I argue that by opening up the concepts of the neutral observer to include the "she-perspective," the generalized other to include interpretations of generalized others and the conception of a democratic civil society to include women, we can enhance the plausibility of discourse ethics' claim to universality.