Transversal-Universals in Discourse Ethics: Towards a Reconcilable Ethics Between Universalism and Communitarianism

This paper discusses the possibility of an ethics of difference. It begins with an introduction to current poststructural and critical theories in order to show their significance for transcultural politics and ethics. Its theme is formulated in terms of the debate between the affirmation of ethical cognitivism cast in the form of universalism and the advocacy of moral skepticism in the mode of communitarianism. Distancing itself from the idea of universal morality, this paper attempts to respond to the challenge of both communitarians and deconstructionists in contemporary French poststructuralism. In the end, it argues for transversality in place of universality.