Abstract

This chapter critiques Habermas’ turn to communicative action and discourse ethics, arguing that it fails as a theory of critical rationality and democratic reason. Specifically, it cannot adequately address the challenges of reification and relativism. In response, the chapter advances a conception of critical reason grounded in a social-ontological theory of human sociality and normativity. It elaborates an ontological theory of ethics based on the substantive dimensions of human praxis and relationality. This model, I argue, offers a more radical and robust foundation for ethical value than Habermas’ discourse ethics, which relies on a postmetaphysical, pragmatic, and noumenal framework. The ontological model not only meets the rationalist demands of universalization and reflexivity but also introduces an anti-reification capacity absent in Habermas’ approach. In doing so, it reconfigures critical reason in ways that deepen its normative and emancipatory potential.