Abstract. Sources and Boundaries of Institutional and Linguistic Normativity. Towards a Critical Social Ontology.

The talk explores the problem of how it is possible to rationally judge an institutionally justified act if, from Hegel to contemporary social ontology, we accept that human reason is necessarily embedded in particular lifeforms and institutional settings. The talk argues that there is a specific, moral criterion of fairness built in every instituional and communicative act, which requires us to respect human dignity in each one of our institutional or communicative acts, and that this criterion can be justified through a linguistic, deflationary reinterpretation of Kant's categorical imperative of universalization of reasons for action.