In a crisp, original style the author approaches the crucial question of moral theory, the is--ought' problem via communicative argumentation. Moving to the end of Habermas's conception of the communicative action, he introduces the concept of radical choice' as the key to the transition from the descriptive to the normative. Phenomenological subjectivity of the intersubjective life-world is being vindicated as the `arch-value' of all derivative values, or the first principle for all normative precepts.
With exceptional acumen and mastery of the philosophical argument, the author -- a young native Chinese lately trained in a Western university -- delineates a fascinating route along which the philosophical question of justification raised in the analytic tradition can be answered on the basis of phenomenology.
A noteworthy contribution to the interplay between the Anglo--American and Continental schools of philosophy.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: the Issue and the Background. 2. Communicative Rationality and the Justification of Normative Validity Claims. 3. The Necessity of Radical Choice. 4. Meaning, Ideality and Subjectivity. 5. Radical Choice Fulfilled and the First `Ought'. Bibliography. Index.