Date: 	Wed, 29 Jan 1997 05:16:08 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: Habermas and Emotions




may i interject,
> 
> > 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.

I'm curious - exactly how would one go about investigating something 
un-emotionally?  How is truth validated in an un-emotional way?  The idea that 
"emotion has no part in determining what is true or how we validate truth" is 
completely counter-intuitive.  To be involved in something is to feel it.  To be 
involved also means to have a point of view.  Having a point of view entails having 
a will - a desire.  The search for truth is a passion, an emotion, and a desire.  The 
perception of truth and untruth is an involvement with it - a feeling.  At evey moment 
emotions are connected to reasoning - in determinating what is true and what isn't. 
 Perhaps my comments simply point out a category mistake - that emotions 
characterize a condition of humanity not a unique factor in determining what is true.

  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.

One of the problems with Habermas's idea of rightness is the razor sharp 
distinction between justice and the good life.  If we take the idea of the concrete 
other seriously - which we must if we don't want to deliberately reify our relations - 
then the distinction no longer makes sense.  Justice cannot simply entail 
recognition of an abstract universal humanity and a substantitive communal being. 
 That which would be just must also recognize individuality.  Social movements are 
largely based on this idea - people must be recognized on all three levels: as 
human beings, members of specific communities, and individuals.  Habermas's 
distinction fails to do justice to the embedded and embodied condition of people.  
Moral theory must encompass more than "generalizable interests" if it is to be 
coherent.
ps.  i'm not sure that the last comment entialed such a response but it does deal 
with the issue of emotions...  and my comments may not be at odds with what has 
been said.

ken