Discourse Ethics to the Test of ICTs

Contemporary technologies renew and broaden the definition of communication far beyond the
dichotomy of strategy-agreement, utility and the establishment of a common horizon of mutual
understanding. Today, the relational pattern itself is made up of communication and information
mediated by technologies. The living habitat of the human is not only the dimension of survival,
but also a natural and cultural, social, urban landscape structured not for communicative
exchange, but by the communication itself. In these profound transformations of human history,
the relationship that human beings have with the world, with other subjects and with themselves
is involved. The very meaning of ethics is therefore in question, since the living environment in
which human beings constitute themselves and act has changed. In particular, one of the most
interesting ethical proposal of the twentieth century, the discourse ethics by Karl-Otto Apel and
Jürgen Habermas, must be rethought, since the communicative environment has deeply
changed.