Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.26362/20210106
Constitutional patriotism in the context of Habermas’s political philosophy
Predrag Zenović
; University of Donja Gorica, Oktoih 1, 81000 Podgorica, Crna Gora
Abstract
Although the work of Jürgen Habermas is often associated with constitutional patriotism as a post-national and post-conventional political identification and allegiance to a set of fundamental norms and principles of a political community, Habermas himself did not elaborate it as a fully-fledged theory. Nevertheless, this paper shows that constitutional patriotism is rooted in some of the most significant elements of his epistemology and is integrally embedded in his social and political theory. The idea of the paper is to offer, through the lens of Habermas’s philosophy, a compelling logical and normative argumentation in favor of constitutional patriotism as a desirable and coherent conception of social and political integration in plural democratic societies. The paper examines the relevance of Habermas’s theory of post-metaphysical reason, discourse ethics, and dichotomies stemming from the tension between liberal and republican paradigms for the notion of constitutional patriotism. At the same time, it explains how these theoretical fragments endow constitutional patriotism with normative validity and legitimacy in instances of its practical application in contemporary complex societies. The idea of the paper is to show the normative advantages of this concept and reaffirm its salience for contemporary theoretical debates on citizenship, social integration, and democracy.
Keywords
Habermas; constitutional patriotism; cooriginality thesis; law; democracy; human rights
Hrčak ID:
258641
URI
Publication date:
10.6.2021.
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