Date: 	Fri, 31 Jan 1997 04:27:09 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: Habermas and Emotions



> Stephen Chilton wrote:
> 
> >while [Habermas] 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. 
> 
> In my reading of Habermas, so long as agreement occurs among particular
> others it is only conventional agreement not moral agreement, which
> requires agreement from an unlimited communication community.  This is a
> universal community, not a particular community of concrete others.  I
> think that's Benhabib's point.
> 
> So the initial question that someone (who was it?) raised is still a good one:
> 
> > 1. How is Habermas any different from Rawls in positing the general other
> > rather than the concrete other?

> Noelle McAfee

Habermas borrows, essentially, two things from Rawls:
1. the congruence of the right and the good - the idea of justice supports a "thin" or 
minimal conception of the good life insofar as the good life always requires justice. 
  In this way - Habermas uses Rawls idea of a well-ordered society.
2.  the idea of a 'reflective equilibrium' which demonstrates how a well-ordered 
society can be situated in the context of existing political culture.  this also brings 
in the idea of an 'overlapping consensus' which ONLY includes generalizable 
interests (questions of justice).
	This is not, for Habermas 1. a normative liberal ethic (as Dworkin would 
have us believe) or 2. a contextualistic theory (as Rorty would have us believe).  
Rawls work, for Habermas, is a reconstructive theory aimed at illucidating the 
presuppositions of speech writ large.  In this way I read Habermas as saying that 
the dynamics of understanding between individuals on a personal level is similar 
to the dynamics of the legal system on an institutional level.  In this way the legal 
system functions as the hinge between the lifeworld (underlying consensus) and 
systems (power and money). 

Now to the question - Habermas makes a very interesting statement about all of 
this - pertaining to strategic and communicative action.  "Depending on the chosen 
perspective, the legal norm present a different kind of situational element: for the 
preson acting strategically, it lies at the level of social facts that externally restrict 
her range of options; for the person acting communicatively, it lies at the level of 
obligatory expectations that, she asssumes, the legal community has rationally 
agreed on....  Inasmuch as these norms leave open the motives for rule-conforming 
behavior, we might say they 'tolerate' an actor's strategic attitude toward the 
individual norm... as such, they at least invite the addressees to follow them from 
the nonenforceable motive of duty."
	The particular individual may act strategically - however if they strategic 
action is too limited for their taste - then they have the option of participating 
communicatively - through the medium of the legal system to generate arguments 
to change the law to accomodate their desired strategic actions - understanding 
that only the force of good reasons can be used in the judiciary.
	This does not answer the question directly but it attempts to demonstrate 
what Habermas is getting at.  I don't know Rawls well enough to point out exactly 
where things are different....