Normativität als Anspruch

Normativity is not easy to justify in the modern age. Neither a general cosmological order, nor a natural law, nor even a general reason can claim unquestioned validity. According to Kant and Nietzsche at the latest, the modern subject's self-legitimation through generalised humane reason is fragile and its inner structure is rendered questionable where its claim to autonomy is accompanied by a legalised form of reason and freedom that cannot avoid exclusion and discrimination. In this respect, its universal validity is also called into question. However, without the reference of thought and action to a validity capable of establishing normativity in its own right, thought loses itself in mere arbitrariness and action in mere conventions and secondary virtues. This article seeks a sphere of validity that can take account of these breaches and thus uphold the claim to normativity.