Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 21:02:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Stephen Chilton <schilton-AT-d.umn.edu>
Subject: Habermas and Emotions


> 1. How is Habermas any different from Rawls in positing the general other
> rather than the concrete other?

Both Rawls and Habermas hold that issues of morality "trump" issues of
care, so in that sense they are both taking their authority from the
general other rather than the particularistic demands of the concrete
other.  Of course there is an obvious difference between the "abstracted
individual" perspective of the Original Position vs. the concrete
agreements required by (U).  As far as I can tell, Rawls never gets to
concrete others.  On the other hand, while H. may derive moral authority
>from the level of general agreement, it is at least agreement of concrete
others mutually recognizing each others in their situatedness.  This
allows H. to pass seamlessly from general morality to issues of more
local, concrete concern:  the smaller the group encompassed by the moral
decision, the more that these concrete, specific, situated individuals,
STILL DECIDING ON THE BASIS OF (U), can take into account the
particularities of the group.



> 2. As I said in my initial post, Habermas appears tome to lack any
> reference to emotion or passion in his discussion of reason (I am primarily
> referring to The Theory of Communicative Action).  Again, Habermas, and as
> far as I can tell, Benhabib also, wants us to be logicians- Vulcans - and
> not human beings who are passionate in their reason.  As Aristotle holds,
> reason is some form of desire.  Habermas negates any emotion by claiming
> that the force of the better argument must be free of emotional tugs, etc.
> This is one problem I have with teaching logic- particularly informal
> logic.  We teach that appeals to pity are not reasons to accept an
> argument.  But why not and according to whom?  Sometimes, as I think Hume
> would argue, only emotion will drive us to accept what reason demands.

I believe you're talking about two different validity claims here:  truth
vs. rightness.  When discussing an external truth, emotion has no part in
determining what is true or how we validate truth.  Of course we feel
happy or sad according to whether our pet theories rise or fall, and
our judgments about what theory we believe are surely affected by emotions
and/or intuitions that are at least first cousins of emotions.  But we
would not say-at least I don't think you would say-that the criteria for
determining truth should take emotions into account as evidence.  So in
the domain of truth, at least, H. does not discuss emotions because his
interest is in redeeming validity claims, not in some sociology-of-science
exploration of why X believes a theory and Y doesn't.
	Rightness, on the other hand, involves emotion directly, but in an
almost hidden way:  as the source of the agreement that one finally
extends or withholds from a proposed norm.  Habermas stops short of an
exploration of this source, at least for issues of rightness, because his
interest is only in arguing that the agreement of all is what validates a
moral norm.  How that agreement arises is not his concern, at least for
the purpose of discourse ethics.
	And to be fair, I think H. recognizes that one's willingness to
agree can shift according to processes that take place in the domain of
truthfulness, and he talks somewhere about Freudian psychology (for
example) playing the same role in this domain as theories of scientific
proof play in their domain. He just doesn't talk as much about this
domain.


I look forward to your responses.

My thanks to Scott Johnson, who passed this post on to me.

Best regards,

Steve

*************************************************************************
| Stephen Chilton, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science |
|                University of Minnesota-Duluth / Duluth, MN 55812-2496 |
|                                                                       |
| 218-726-8162 (desk)     218-726-7534 (dept)     218-724-0979 (home)   |
| FAX:  218-726-6386               INTERNET:  schilton-AT-mail.d.umn.edu   |
|                                                                       |
| "After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, |
| the school board is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of  |
| David Steele to the post."                                            |
|      -- Philip Streifer, Superintendant of Schools, Barrington, Rhode |
|         Island                                                        |
*************************************************************************