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A Test of Conscience Without Indispensable Norms: Niklas Luhmann’s War on Terror

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Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 27. Mai 2016
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Soziale Systeme
Aus der Zeitschrift Soziale Systeme Band 14 Heft 1

Abstract

In Niklas Luhmann’s social theory, the state of exception does not exist. His monographs presuppose the »normal« functioning of communication in world society, and this means that the borders of function systems and the differences between media and codes remain intact. Politics is politics, law is law, etc. But is this still true in the case of large scale terror attacks? In the question he posed to jurists in Heidelberg - whether »indispensable norms« are still valid - Luhmann opens a fissure in the heart of normality. By using the scenario of a »ticking bomb,« Luhmann parades the aporias of function codes before our eyes. The state of exception is normatively undecidable, but requires a decision nevertheless. These are the »hard cases« and the »tragic choices.« The essay plays out various scenarios involving dilemmas of decision in moral, legal, political, and mass-media communication and arrives at a type of »aprincipled maneuvering« that places systems theory astonishingly close to the modes of amoral theories current in the USA since »9/11«.

Online erschienen: 2016-5-27
Erschienen im Druck: 2008-5-1

© 2008 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Inhalt Jahrgang 14 (2008)
  2. Introduction: The Form of the Problem
  3. Are There Still Indispensable Norms in Our Society?
  4. Beyond Barbarism
  5. On Norms as Social Facts: A View from Historical Political Science
  6. The Fact of Values
  7. A Test of Conscience Without Indispensable Norms: Niklas Luhmann’s War on Terror
  8. »Against Normative Tone-Deafness«
  9. Torture and Systems Theory
  10. »Human Rights Fundamentalism« The Late Luhmann on Human Rights
  11. On Absence: Society’s Return to Barbarians
  12. Abstracts
  13. About the authors
  14. Hinweise für unsere Autoren
https://doi.org/10.1515/sosys-2008-0107

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Inhalt Jahrgang 14 (2008)
  2. Introduction: The Form of the Problem
  3. Are There Still Indispensable Norms in Our Society?
  4. Beyond Barbarism
  5. On Norms as Social Facts: A View from Historical Political Science
  6. The Fact of Values
  7. A Test of Conscience Without Indispensable Norms: Niklas Luhmann’s War on Terror
  8. »Against Normative Tone-Deafness«
  9. Torture and Systems Theory
  10. »Human Rights Fundamentalism« The Late Luhmann on Human Rights
  11. On Absence: Society’s Return to Barbarians
  12. Abstracts
  13. About the authors
  14. Hinweise für unsere Autoren
Heruntergeladen am 29.4.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sosys-2008-0107/html?lang=de
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