environment. Nor can it be reasonably expected that such discourses could
be understood by “non-believers” within such an environment. According to
Habermas, any future potential of religious expression to serve as a norma-
tive discourse hinges on its capacity to be translated into other discursive
spheres, such as law, politics, sociology or, I would add, thanatology, a trans-
lation likely considered undesirable by religious adherents since it would ren-
der the perceived independence of religion as superfluous. Failing this,
Habermas maintains that religion cannot but find its significance in moder-
nity diminished, thrown irresistibly into the tide of secularization, however
inspiring and rejuvenating it may in fact be. The persistence of religious lan-
guage and mythic narratives within public institutions can only lead to break-
downs in communication, perhaps at times when such breakdowns are highly
undesirable.
Although Habermas’s claim regarding the uniqueness of religious language
may be problematic, since it seems to privilege, or at least single out, reli-
gious semantics over other forms of expression, it is consistent with the
premises of a moral theory of discourse affirming the autonomy of individ-
uals to determine for themselves the parameters of the good life (and good
death) based upon the modernist distinction between public morality and
private ethical life without political prejudice or prejudgment (Habermas
1990a:98–109). Habermas accepts the right of individuals to draw upon reli-
gious language, but rejects its semantic capacity to be meaningful under the
conditions of postmetaphysical thinking, as normatively binding for others.
Any infraction of the spellbinding power of the sacred within the public
sphere can be anticipated to have regressive tendencies. Nonetheless, as an
ethical guide having to do with issues of the good life, in contradistinction
to the impartial moral point of view that regulates the public sphere, religion
may remain intact and, at least to some degree, is celebrated within the plu-
rality of democratic societies. To be sure, private ethical life theorized by
Habermas encompasses a wide range of social relations not the least of which
is a public sphere wherein questions of semantic and rhetoric are debated.
Toward a Critique of Postmodern Thanatology
With the decline of religious authorities and growing resistance to the sov-
ereignty of medical professions, there is evidence that the primacy of the indi-
vidual within the postmodern response to death is accompanied by the
194 • Kenneth G. MacKendrick