Normative controversies in the literature

In the Habermasian version of deliberative theory, truthfulness(Wahrhaftigkeit) is a key element. Other theorists,however, give less weight to truthfulness or, under certain conditions, evenallow some “white lies.” In an early work, Jürgen Habermaspostulates that “each person may only assert what he believeshimself.” He sticks with this assertion in a more recent work where hewrites that in deliberation participants must abstain from deceptive behavior(ohne Täuschung). Habermas claims that in mostsocial situations it is routine praxis to assume that others are truthful;otherwise one would not engage in any conversation at all. If this assumption isviolated, deliberation breaks down. For Habermas, without truthfulness no realdeliberation can take place. For him, truthfulness is a necessary condition ofdeliberation in a constitutive sense. Habermas explicitly bases his theory onImmanuel Kant, so it is relevant to explore what Kant means by truthfulness.Like Habermas, Kant used the concept of Wahrhaftigkeit, whichfor him had a much deeper connotation than the English translation oftruthfulness. The concept Wahrhaftigkeit for Kant certainlyincludes not telling lies, but it is much broader in its meaning. To bewahrhaftig means to be true to one’s inner self, tofind one’s innermost identity. For Kant, to bewahrhaftig is to find one’s human dignity. He wentas far as to write that not to be wahrhaftig is a crime becauseone destroys one’s human dignity. Without human dignity, we become mere“speech machines” (Sprachmaschinen). For Kant itis a duty (Pflicht) to oneself and to others to bewahrhaftig. If we are not wahrhaftig withothers, we do not respect their human dignity, and we do not act according toour own dignity.