A democracy built on communicative action: Bahá'í political practice as a prefigurative resource for institutional effectiveness, accountability, and inclusivity.

Goal 16 of the UN sustainable development goals, which calls on the global community to "build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels," can be conceptualized as aiming at fostering communicative action, a concept developed by Jürgen Habermas to describe a mode for coordinating society grounded in deliberation. However, Habermas simultaneously provides an account of the structural transformation of the public sphere that suggests a hard limit on the capacity of mainstream capitalist liberal democracies to foster genuine communicative action in the relationships between institutions, individuals and communities. This paper therefore argues for the critical role of prefigurative politics, in which communities strive to internally embody desired socio-political forms rather than focusing on changing the wider socio-political order, as a vital resource for generating examples to inform institutional progress. The prefigurative example of the Baha'i community demonstrates norms and practices that may illustrate a path out of the dynamic Habermas identifies of system colonizing lifeworld, by fostering and protecting communicative action as the mode of social coordination. The form of communicative action found in the Baha'i community is situated in a context of a telic-organic model of relationships between individuals, communities and institutions. The paper contrasts the conceptual underpinnings of this model with individualistic conceptions of human nature that are argued to undermine liberal democracy's capacity for communicative action. At the core of communicative action within a Baha'i context is a distinctive model of deliberation, known within the community as "consultation". The paper argues that rational-critical consultation can offer a vital nuance to Habermas' ideal of communicative action as rational-critical debate in the public sphere. The formal democratic structures and processes of the Bahá'í community are also explored as an institutional example that arguably meets the challenge of Goal 16. The paper concludes with initial reflections on a process by which the prefigurative example of a Baha'i model might be brought to bear on institutional performance in wider society.

Communicative action, a path through the dissonance between nursing and corporate healthcare values.

There is tension in the US healthcare system due to conflicting goals of maximizing the public's health and at the same time ensuring shareholder profit among the many private organizations that provide care to those in need. As a result, nurses (often the frontline workers in this mixed public/private and economized system) may experience dissonance between their professional values and the capitalistic values embodied in the healthcare system. Beyond the workplace, nurses are also committed to championing health and wellness, to advocating for social justice, and driving health policy. Yet, constrained by the conflicts between neoliberal values in an economized system and the values of care that inspire many to join the healthcare profession, nurses may lose the ability to live up to their moral ideals, to champion social justice, and to improve public health outcomes. In this paper, we use the critical theory of Juergen Habermas to explore these tensions and to suggest a path forward for nurses. We suggest that by engaging in dialog with each other and the public, and working for greater inclusivity, nurses can find ways to deconstruct ideologies inherent in our current healthcare system, to consider alternatives, and liberate healthcare from the dominance of market forces.

The impact of Jürgen Habermas's scientific production: a scientometric review.

The use of bibliometrics, based on statistical and mathematical tools, makes it possible to measure the contributions of researchers to science. This is a widely used tool to assess scientific production in several areas of knowledge. Such methodology analyzes publication trends, author networks, structures of co-citation, journals and even the scientific contribution of renowned scholars in science. The precursor of bibliometrics, Eugene Garfield, who proposes the retrieval of information from the indexing of citations, was the object of a scientometric review aimed at assessing his impact on science. Given such relevance, this article presents the academic contribution of Jürgen Habermas based on a preliminary scientometric review of his studies. Jürgen Habermas is regarded not only as an active scholar in the social and political process, but also as a productive, controversial and influential contemporary author. The correct understanding of his works is a great challenge, as the bases of his thinking are so broad that they allow an interface between different approaches. We elaborated a design of his scientific work with the advancement to a connection between his main ideas through the use of bibliometric software. Bibliometrics, of the scientometric type, allows the understanding of how recognized patterns in citations can develop information relevant to the scientific field. The results confirm the multidisciplinary contribution of Habermas's studies and highlight his main fields of research and works, which serve as a foundation for clearly understanding and applying his concepts.

O futebol e a sociabilidade: a ginga habermasiana e dionisíaca / Fútbol y sociabilidad: la ginga habermasiana y dionisíaca / Football and sociability: the habermasian and dionysian swing

Resumo O objetivo deste ensaio é compreender a configuração do futebol na sociedade brasileira relacionando três autores: Roberto Da Matta, Gilberto Freyre e Jürgen Habermas. Jürgen Habermas e sua Teoria do Agir Comunicativo será o alicerce das discussões com os outros dois autores. O primeiro abordando a questão do futebol e a dramatização da sociedade, e o segundo, aproximando a dicotomia entre apolíneo e dionisíaco. Como provocação, o ensaio procura discutir e problematizar a relação identidade, poder e reificação como questões candentes para os estudos socioculturais da educação física e do esporte. (AU)

Resumen El objetivo de este ensayo es comprender la configuración del fútbol en la sociedad brasileña relacionando a tres autores: Roberto DaMatta, Gilberto Freyre y Jürgen Habermas. Jürgen Habermas y su Teoría de la Acción Comunicativa serán la base de las discusiones con los otros dos autores; el primero abordando el tema del fútbol y la dramatización de la sociedad, y el segundo, abordando la dicotomía entre apolíneo y dionisiaco. Como provocación, el ensayo busca discutir y problematizar la relación entre identidad, poder y cosificación como temas candentes para los estudios socioculturales de la educación física y el deporte. (AU)

Abstract The objective of this essay is to understand the configuration of football in Brazilian society by relating three authors, Roberto DaMatta, Gilberto Freyre and Jürgen Habermas. Jürgen Habermas and his Theory of Communicative Action will be the foundation of the discussions with the other two authors. The first addresses the issue of football and the dramatisation of society, and the second approaches the dichotomy between Apollonian and Dionysian. As a provocation, the essay seeks to discuss and problematise the relationship between identity, power and reification as burning issues for sociocultural studies of Physical Education and sport. (AU)

Rereading Habermas in Times of CRISPR-cas: A Critique of and an Alternative to the Instrumentalist Interpretation of the Human Nature Argument.

Habermas's argument from human nature, which speaks in favour of holding back the use of human germline editing for purposes of enhancement, has lately received criticism anew. Prominent are objections to its supposedly genetic essentialist and determinist framework, which underestimates social impacts on human development. I argue that this criticism originates from an instrumentalist reading of Habermas's argument, which wrongly focuses on empirical conditions and means-ends-relations. Drawing on Habermas's distinction of a threefold use of practical reason, I show how an alternative-the ethical-reading avoids essentialist and determinist objections by addressing an existential level of sense making. I present three reasons that speak in favour of the ethical reading and I demonstrate how it incorporates social aspects of character formation. Habermas's account therefore offers exactly what the critics claim is missing. The paper concludes with a conceptual challenge that the ethical reading has to face within Habermas's overall approach to genetic engineering.

Falling through the cracks: the invisible hospital cleaning workforce.

PURPOSE: This paper explores the role of hospital cleaners and their contribution to healthcare safety. Few studies have examined the activities and input of hospital cleaners, rendering them largely invisible in healthcare research. Yet, as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demonstrated, this sizeable workforce carries out tasks critical to healthcare facilities and wider health system functioning. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Drawing on the work of Habermas, the authors examine the literature surrounding cleaners and quality and safety in healthcare. The authors theorise cleaners' work as both instrumental and communicative and examine the perceptions of healthcare professionals and managers, as well as cleaners themselves, of healthcare professionals and managers' role and contribution to quality and safety. FINDINGS: Cleaners are generally perceived by the literature as performing repetitive - albeit important - tasks in isolation from patients. Cleaners are not considered part of the "healthcare team" and are excluded from decision-making and interprofessional communication. Yet, cleaners can contribute to patient care; ubiquity and proximity of cleaners to patients offer insights and untapped potential for involvement in hospital safety. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper brings an overdue focus to this labour force by examining the nature and potential of their work. This paper offers a new application of Habermas' work to this domain, rendering visible how the framing of cleaners' role works to exclude this important workforce from participation in the patient safety agenda.

Senior Women's Dance: From Pleasure to Emancipation.

The aim of this paper is to capture older adult women's experience of dance. To this purpose, a qualitative research study was carried out with members of the 'Gracje' dance group. The study used Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action as its theoretical underpinnings. The focus was on the models of action and validity claims expressed in language (narrative). In this theoretical framework, dancing activity has been shown as promoting not only physical health and mental wellbeing but also social involvement. Our study has found that, in and through dance, the older adults primarily realised their claims to pleasure, attractiveness, health and emancipation. This has considerably improved their bodily capacity and increased their self-esteem. However, what the older adults themselves find most important is that the realisation of these claims beneficially affects their interactions in family and neighbourly communities and facilitates their engagement in volunteer activities, helping people at risk of exclusion due to age and/or disability.

The genesis, development and implementation of an interdisciplinary university Cross-School Research Group.

This article examines the genesis, development and implementation of an interdisciplinary university cross-school research group (three individual schools) at Federation University in Australia. This CSRG is a consequence of both local and national calls for interdisciplinarity in university research and a direct response to the revised Strategic Goals and Policy document at Federation University. Using a conceptual framework based on a treatise by Jürgen Habermas (The theory of communicative action, Beacon Press, 1987) incorporating three socio-political levels (Lifeworld, Steering Media and Systems), we examined the ideals, processes and challenges in setting up an interdisciplinary research group within a traditional disciplinary-based university environment. Drawing on multiple data sets composed of member survey responses and interviews, email communication, online meetings, policy documents and co-leader feedback, we identified key resonant themes focussing on academic aspiration and motivation, the role of policy and practice, influence of grants and grant development across schools, mentoring and publishing. Using Habermas' conceptual framework and his overarching notion of Lifeworld with qualitative methods of data analysis, this article explores establishment of the CSRG, deeper academic aspirations and engagement for interdisciplinarity informing the group's formation and effectiveness of the processes used in this specific case. The impact on systems and policy is addressed together with the processes adopted to bring about interdisciplinary university collaboration. Evaluating the formation of the CSRG, the authors found that researchers placed a high value on opportunities to creatively collaborate in a cross-school and interdisciplinary environment, whereas obtaining grants and publishing research were seen by staff as indirect and less immediate benefits of collaboration. This article contributes to the growing body of research on interdisciplinary collaboration by applying a distinct theoretical and analytical framework to emphasise the potential of grassroots collaboration and the role of power and influence on research within universities.

First Nation Peoples' nutrition and exercise group programmes: transforming success through the lifeworld.

PURPOSE: Previous literature has applied system-focused structures to understand the success of First Nations Peoples' nutrition and exercise group programmes. Existing system-focused measures have included biomedical outcomes, access and service utilization. By broadening the focus of programme success beyond the system, we can evaluate programmes from a First Nations Peoples' lifeworld perspective. Critical hermeneutics and yarning using a lens of Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action to the literature has the potential to transform understandings of "success" in First Nations Peoples' nutrition and exercise group programmes. METHODS: In this literature interpretation, we explored the critical success factors from a lifeworld perspective, giving scope to go beyond a system perspective to include a cultural, social or personal perspective. RESULTS: Our yarning led us to understand that there is a communicative relationship between explicit system structures and implicit lifeworld concepts that are critical success factors for First Nations nutrition and exercise group programmes. We have developed a set of reflective questions to guide others in considering a lifeworld perspective. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings represent a shift away from success measured by the dominant power structure to respect the lifeworld culture, knowledges and values of First Nations Peoples towards shared understanding and mutual decision-making.

Healthcare professionals' practice and interactions in older peoples' cross-sectoral clinical care trajectories when acutely hospitalized - a qualitative observation study.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare services have become more complex, globally and nationally. Denmark is renowned for an advanced and robust healthcare system, aiming at a less fragmented structure. However, challenges within the coordination of care remain. Comprehensive restructures based on marketization and efficiency, e.g. New Public Management (NPM) strategies has gained momentum in Denmark including. Simultaneously, changes to healthcare professionals' identities have affected the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals, and patient involvement in decision-making was acknowledged as a quality- and safety measure. An understanding of a less linear patient pathway can give rise to conflict in the care practice. Social scientists, including Jürgen Habermas, have highlighted the importance of communication, particularly when shared decision-making models were introduced. Healthcare professionals must simultaneously deliver highly effective services and practice person-centered care. Co-morbidities of older people further complicate healthcare professionals' practice. AIM: This study aimed to explore and analyse how healthcare professionals' interactions and practice influence older peoples' clinical care trajectory when admitted to an emergency department (ED) and the challenges that emerged. METHODS: This qualitative study arises from a hermeneutical stand within the interpretative paradigm. Focusing on the healthcare professionals' interactions and practice we followed the clinical care trajectories of seven older people (aged > 65, receiving daily homecare) acutely hospitalized to the ED. Participant observations were combined with interviews with healthcare professionals involved in the clinical care trajectory. We followed-up with the older person by phone call until four weeks after discharge. The study followed the code of conduct for research integrity and is reported in accordance with the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) guidelines. RESULTS: The analysis revealed four themes: 1)"The end justifies the means - 'I know what is best for you'", 2)"Basic needs of care overruled by system effectiveness", 3)"Treatment as a bargain", and 4)"Healthcare professionals as solo detectives". CONCLUSION: Dissonance between system logics and the goal of person-centered care disturb the healthcare practice and service culture negatively affecting the clinical care trajectory. A practice culture embracing better communication and more person-centered care should be enhanced to improve the quality of care in cross-sectoral trajectories.

Developing HIV prevention online using a habermasian 'lifeworld' approach with young men who have sex with men from Bali.

The Internet is a promising medium to strengthen participation in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). This study engaged YMSM from Bali in codesigning online HIV prevention using a series of participatory action research focus groups. Further, this research utilized Habermasian critical theory of communicative action to interpret the findings. This was framed around the current mismatch between HIV prevention, the "systemworld", and the lived reality, or "lifeworld", of YMSM in Bali. Using a model of intervention called "So Us", YMSM aspired to HIV prevention which reflects their identity, language, and interaction style.

'One feels somewhere that one is insignificant in that system' - older multimorbid patients' between lifeworld and system in healthcare.

BACKGROUND: When older multimorbid people are acutely hospitalized, continuity of care is a fundamental goal in the healthcare process. However, some acute hospitalized older multimorbid patients do not experience continuity of care. This phenomenon is explored using the theoretical framework of Jürgen Habermas "Theory of communicative action". METHODS: Acutely hospitalized patients over the age of 65 with two or more chronic conditions and who received home care services were invited to participate in two interviews: one at the emergency department and the other 4-12 weeks after discharge. These interviews formed the basis for an evaluation of patient experience of continuity of care, and the content of the interviews was analyzed using a structured matrix. RESULTS: Fifteen patients participated with seven patients evaluated to have continuity of care in their healthcare process. Eight patients were evaluated as not having experienced continuity of care in their healthcare process. The categories from the matrix highlighted a healthcare system that interfered with a patient's lifeworld with a lack of communication, different expectations, frustration regarding care, strained relations to health care providers and feelings of being objectified. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that mutual understanding based on communicative action is essential when it comes to patients' experiences of continuity of care. Our results justify improving the mutual understanding between patients and professionals in transition between healthcare sectors. Future research should target whether an enhanced focus on communicative action and mutual understanding in particular between non-healthcare professionals and patients will improve the patients' perception of continuity of care.

The gap between women's needs when diagnosed with asymptomatic osteoporosis and what is provided by the healthcare system: A qualitative study.

OBJECTIVES: Women diagnosed with asymptomatic osteoporosis need better support to understand the implications of the condition and how to practice self-management in their daily lives. In contrast, physicians report that asymptomatic osteoporosis is not a serious chronic condition and do not pay much attention to the condition compared to other chronic conditions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the gap between women's needs, when diagnosed with asymptomatic osteoporosis, and what is provided by the healthcare system. METHODS: A secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews with 17 women newly diagnosed with asymptomatic osteoporosis was conducted and combined with semi-structured interviews with six physicians. Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological method was used in the analysis. RESULTS: Two overall themes were identified: different perceptions of asymptomatic osteoporosis and discrepancies in the osteoporosis consultation. Habermas was used as a theoretical approach to discuss the findings. DISCUSSION: We discuss that physicians pay too much attention to the objective world and highlight that there is a need for better inclusion of women's subjective and social worlds, to enable mutual understanding and communicative action in the osteoporosis consultation. This would lead to treatment decisions based on women's needs and support women in their self-management of osteoporosis.

A colonized general practice? A critical habermasian analysis of how general practitioners experience defensive medicine in their everyday working life.

The aim of this article is to show how Jürgen Habermas' communicative action theory serves as a useful tool in analysing and interpreting empirical data on how Danish general practitioners experience defensive medicine in their everyday working life. Through six qualitative focus group interviews with a total of 28 general practitioners (14 men and 14 women), the general practitioners' understandings of and experiences with defensive medicine were unfolded and discussed. Traditionally, defensive medicine is understood as physicians' deviation from sound medical practice due to fears of liability claims or lawsuits. In this study, however, a broader understanding of defensive medicine emerged as unnecessary medical actions that are more substantiated by feelings of demands and pressures than meaningful clinical behaviour. As a first analytical step, the data are contextualized drawing on the medical sociological literature that has theorized recent changes within primary health care such as regulation, audit, standardization and consumerism. Using Habermas' theorization to further interpret the general practitioners' experiences, we argue that central areas of the general practitioners' clinical everyday work life can be seen as having become subject to the habermasian social and political processes of 'strategic action' and 'colonization'. It is furthermore shown that the general practitioners share an impulse to resist these colonizing processes, hereby pointing to a need for challenging the increasingly defensive medical culture that seems to pervade the organization of general practice today.

The tired hero and her (il)legitimation: Reworking Parsons to analyse experiences of burnout within the Dutch employment system and lifeworld.

Burnout is an illness label, and in some healthcare systems a diagnostic category, which has received growing attention and usage. Despite its ubiquity and widespread media coverage, the medical sociological literature on the condition remains small and the wider sociological literature tends to treat the rise of burnout as a straightforward reflection of changing working environments. Very few studies have critically reflected on the nature of burnout, its diagnosis and lived experiences of the condition. This neglect is surprising given the relative legitimacy of burnout as an illness category in several national healthcare contexts, not least in the Netherlands. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with a range of burnout sufferers (n = 18) and diagnosing professionals (n = 12) in the Netherlands, we explore participants' narrated understandings of the condition in light of a reworked Parsonian framework. Narratives suggested sufferers of burnout generally received legitimation, often being understood as hardworking, diligent and altruistic. Experiences of (partial) acceptance through a medical label, and the relative lack of stigma were important to sense-making and coping. This recognition of burnout was particularly striking, given several features burnout shares with conditions commonly associated with ontological doubt, moral suspicion and stigma. Yet recognition of commitment and strength sat in tension with psychological assistance, which sought to correct tendencies for working too hard for too long. Drawing on insights from Habermas's extensive reformulation of Parsons's work, we understand the legitimation and tensions around burnout care in light of meanings, metaphors and manipulation which, in turn, we locate in relation to the functioning of wider socio-cultural lifeworlds and political-economic systems, including the sediments of earlier political-economic and cultural structures.

Transformative dimensions of lifelong learning: Mezirow, Rorty and COVID-19.

COVID-19 has done significant damage to individuals, families, workers and the economy. What is not known about the virus is part of the problem, and the knowledge gap drives an unprecedented and urgent search for knowledge. This article explores the challenges for lifelong learning and the relevance of transformative learning. Disorientation, disorienting dilemmas and critical reflection are the ingredients of such learning, since we can only learn our way out of this situation. The authors present American adult educator Jack Mezirow's theory of transformative learning (TL) as an appropriate learning framework for lifelong learning. They draw on the work of American philosopher Richard Rorty and German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas to re-shape TL so that it supports the kind of learning that is sufficiently complex and nuanced to enable us to deal with contradictions, ambivalence and meaning-making in a world where not-knowing is the new normal.

Les dimensions transformatrices de l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie : Mezirow, Rorty et la COVID-19 ­ La COVID-19 a causé des dommages considérables aux individus, aux familles, aux travailleurs et à l'économie. Ce que nous ignorons du virus fait partie du problème et cette absence de savoir impulse une quête de connaissances urgente et sans précédent. Cet article se penche sur les défis qui se posent à l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie et sur la pertinence de l'apprentissage transformateur. La désorientation, les dilemmes désorientants et la réflexion critique sont les ingrédients de cet apprentissage étant donné que nous ne pouvons sortir de cette situation qu'en apprenant. Les auteurs présentent la théorie de l'apprentissage transformateur du professeur américain en éducation des adultes Jack Mezirow comme un cadre didactique approprié pour l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie. Ils s'inspirent des travaux du philosophe américain Richard Rorty et du philosophe et sociologue allemand Jürgen Habermas pour refondre l'apprentissage transformateur de sorte qu'il accompagne un type d'apprentissage suffisamment complexe et nuancé qui nous permette de faire face aux contradictions, à l'ambivalence et la recherche de sens dans un monde où ne pas savoir est la nouvelle norme.

Empowerment of whom? The gap between what the system provides and patient needs in hip fracture management: A healthcare professionals' lifeworld perspective.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To use a Habermasian lifeworld theoretical perspective to illuminate a treatment gap for hip fracture patients in a Danish university hospital to guide future healthcare services. BACKGROUND: Most healthcare systems focus on systematised guidelines to help reduce hospital length of stay in response to increasing demand because of the ageing of the global population. For patients with hip fractures, a previous study demonstrated that there is a lack of patient empowerment and a gap between patients' needs and wishes and what was provided by the healthcare system. DESIGN: In this follow-up study, the previous findings were introduced to a mixed group of health professionals (HPs) who participated in focus group discussions (n = 3, with a total of 18 HPs). METHODS: Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. By analysing the discourse of the discussions using Habermas' perspective, the lack of patient-empowerment was illuminated and facilitated, describing it in terms of the gap it creates in communicative actions between HPs and patients. RESULTS: Information and education of patients in systematised pathways, such as those for patients with hip fractures, are dominated by a biomedical discourse. Patients are overwhelmed by the psycho-social implications of the hip fracture, leaving them in a shock-like state of mind. CONCLUSION: Empowerment of patients should involve empowerment of HPs by providing them with skills to support patients in a shock-like state of mind. There is also a need to provide HPs with a more individually targeted means of informing and educating patients.

"Starting from a higher place": linking Habermas to teaching and learning clinical reasoning in the emergency medicine context.

Teaching clinical reasoning in emergency medicine requires educators to foster diagnostic accuracy and judicious decision-making amidst chaotic ambient factors including clinician fatigue, high cognitive load, and diverse patient expectations. The current study applies the early work of Jurgen Habermas and his knowledge-constitutive interests as a lens to explore an educational approach where physician-educators were asked to make their expert reasoning visible to emergency medicine trainees, to more deliberately make visible and accessible the context-specific thinking that emergency physicians routinely use. An action research methodology was used. The 'making thinking visible' teaching approach was introduced to five emergency medicine educators working in large public hospital emergency departments. Participants were asked to trial this teaching method and document its impact on student learning over two reporting cycles. Based on written reports of trialing the teaching approach, participants identified a need to change from: (1) introducing thinking structures to cultivating enquiry; and, (2) providing explanations based on cognitive thinking routines towards encouraging the learner to see the relevance of the clinical context. Educators described how they developed a more diagnostic and reflexive approach to learners, recognized the need to cultivate independent thinking, and valued the opportunity to reflect on their usual teaching. Teaching clinical reasoning using the 'making thinking visible' approach prompted educators to decrease the emphasis on providing technical information to assisting learners to understand the purposes and meanings behind clinical reasoning in emergency medicine. The knowledge-constitutive interests work of Jurgen Habermas was found to provide a robust framework supporting this emancipatory teaching approach.

Habermas and the therapeutic function of language.

The aim of this article was to interpret Habermas's concept of language in terms of its therapeutic potential which can be effectively realized in nursing practice. Drawing on Habermas's definition, we analyse the components of rational communication which are necessary for the patient and the therapist to achieve understanding. In doing this, we examine not only lifeworld, system and validity claims, which are well-known notions within Habermas's theory of communicative action, but also less frequently studied elements of this theory, such as everyday world, to which the patient refers in the process of self-understanding and identity construction. We also address culture and language as a pre-rational factor which can disturb, or even preclude, communication and understanding. In such circumstances, we propose supplementing the Habermasian therapeutic project with a psychoanalytical interpretations of the utterances of the patients who have difficulty defining the situation within which therapy is possible.

An ambiguity in Habermas's argument against liberal eugenics.

In his book The future of human nature, Jürgen Habermas argues against a scenario of liberal eugenics, in which parents are free to prenatally manipulate their children's genetic constitution via germline interventions. In this paper, I draw attention to the fact that his species-ethical line of argument is pervaded by a substantial ambiguity between an argument from actual intervention (AAI) and an argument from mere controllability (AMC). Whereas the first argument focuses on threats for the autonomy and equality of prenatally modified persons, the second argument takes all human beings, whether they have been modified or not, into account. Hence, when invoking Habermas in these debates, bioethicists need to consider carefully which argument they are referring to.