De Transformatieve Dialoog: Over het oplossen van identiteitsgerelateerde morele conflicten

Abstract

Some conflicts between people are intractable. This means that they are difficult or impossible to solve, and carry the risk of serious escalation. There are situations in which this intractability can only be understood well in relation to needs and/or values that those involved consider essential to who they. I refer to these as “identity-related moral conflicts” (IRMC). A person’s identity is not subject to negotiation. Therefore, the question arises: How can a stable and just solution be conceived for such conflicts? Several influential philosophical theories, such as Rawls's Political Liberalism, Habermas's Discourse Ethics and Taylor's Articulation Ethics, fail to discern a stable and just solution to such conflicts. The solutions these theories foresee are possible only when conditions are met - conditions that are not met in an IRMC. My proposal to distinguish a just and stable solution is by combining the strengths of Discourse Ethics and the Articulation Ethics so that they can compensate for each other's weakness. This leads to a theory of the Transformative Dialogue with which stable and just solutions of IRMCs can be worked out. The core of this theory is that authenticity should be understood not individually but intersubjectively. In other words, what is authentic to someone is determined in simultaneous, mutual relationships of recognition that are constituted by a Transformative Dialogue. The Transformative Dialogue refers to the process in which parties in an IRMC transform their self-understanding and their understanding of the other in such a way that a relationship of mutual recognition emerges. The intractable conflict is thereby resolved in a stable and just manner. To be able to solve intractable conflicts in practice, it is necessary to make the Transformative Dialogue part of institutions so that a transformative-deliberative society arises in which the transformation of self-understanding is as common as the exchange of factual arguments or negotiation.