Jürgen Habermas’s Moral Failure

Chmielewski, Adam

doi:10.22034/jpiut.2026.74673.4752

Jürgen Habermas’s Moral Failure

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Adam Chmielewski

Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wrocław, Poland

10.22034/jpiut.2026.74673.4752

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas’s passing in 2026 was an occasion for his numerous disciples and followers to remember his influential contribution to the theory of democracy. However, the chorus of appreciation was disturbed by criticisms of Habermas’s stance on the fate of Palestinians. Based on a review of the criticisms sparked by the publication of Principles of Solidarity, a declaration coauthored by Habermas following Hamas’s attack on Israel of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli disproportionate response to the attack, I argue that Habermas failed to properly appreciate the moral problem of offloading the consequences of past German antisemitism onto the present fate of Palestinians, and exposed himself to the charge of moral failure. His moral failure has two dimensions: first is that the past German crimes against the Jews blinded him to the implications his unequivocal support of Israeli policies had for the Palestinians, while the second is that throughout his public activity, he never used his moral authority to defend the Palestinians’ right to existence and their own state.

Keywords

Main Subjects

philosophy

References

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