Der heilige Bund der Freiheit

The post-metaphysical theory of deliberative democracy based on the rationality of communicative discourses and on the non-discriminative reciprocity of appreciation by modern critical social theory is characterised by a deep gap in its social and ontological foundations. This analysis argues that the idea of the social state of law must include the transcendental notion of the secular sacredness of the inherent dignity of personhood as a non-contractual precondition of the modern society of diversity. The common welfare of social freedom does not function sufficiently through the formal mechanisms of the democratic openness of communicative discourses but needs a holy covenant.