DUSSEL OR HABERMAS:

AN ETHIC FOR LATIN AMERICA

Abstract

The goal of the present paper is to establish a parallel between the ethical perspectives presented by Dussel and Habermas and, from these assumptions, to argue if the universal consensus meets the citizenship demands of the Latin American man. On the one hand, Dussel starts from a responsible exegesis of Marxian writings which, purged in the light of third world demands, leads to the idea of praxis as the path to man's self-liberation. It is, in fact, a loosening of the Europeanist aspect of the critique of the nineteen hundred, in order to create, through social work, the disalienation. On the other hand, although Habermas shows some sensitivity to the problem of man excluded by capital relations, his universalism is attached to the old world. It is therefore necessary to ask whether this whole theoretical building is sufficient to meet the emancipation needs of the third world man. Such an analysis leads us, certainly, to the concept of utopia, so dear to Dussel, thematized as a space yet to happen, as a possibility for the realization of man. Aspect that for Habermas is linked to the future as a construction of democracy.