Cardozo Law Review
Abstract
One of the doubts raised against discourse theory by many critics concerns the place of the individual. Liberals especially fear that the individual gets involved in a system of obligations which is derived from certain pragmatical presuppositions of communication and which forces the individual to participate in discourses whenever he or she pursues his or her own happiness in society. But Jacques Derrida too, who could scarcely be called a "liberal" in the traditional sense, characterizes those presuppositions of communication which entail an obligation for the speaker and the hearer as "violence." For these critics, it must now be a surprise to read in Jurgen Habermas's book that the individual possesses negative rights, especially a right to privacy, which entitles him or her even to refrain from all those obligations which are linked with communication. "Legally granted liberties entitle one to drop out of communicative action, to refuse illocutionary obligations; they ground a privacy freed from the burden of reciprocally acknowledged and mutually expected communicative freedoms." This does not mean, however, that Habermas follows the traditional line of argumentation, which derives a conception of negative liberties from their opposition to the executive power of the state. The concept of "communicative freedom" holds a strong position and is mentioned quite often in the other parts of the book, but without further explanation.
Keywords
Internet, Politics (General), Communications Law, First Amendment
Disciplines
Communications Law | First Amendment | Law
Recommended Citation
Klaus Günther,
Communicative Freedom, Communicative Power, and Jurisgenesis,
17
Cardozo L. Rev.
1035
(1996).
Available at:
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol17/iss4/13