Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 10:09:55 -0600
From: lennymo-AT-casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lenny Moss)
Subject: HAB: Re: Bonnie Duran


>Doesn't Habermas (H) posit that the correct choice of rationality
>is to be determined by the sphere in which it is used?  I understood
>strategic rationality to be essential in the market sphere


Habermas thinks that market relations are integrated and steered not by
communicative rationality but by "media".  In this case the medium of money
and the systematic dynamics of the global market.  Instrumentally rational
behaviour in relation to the market then is that which successfully orients
itself to the terms set by the market.  Habermas thinks this is O.K. within
certain boundaries.  As you suggest it is when spheres which have, or
should be, integrated on the basis of practical discourses become steered
by media that pathological consequences inevitably result.  Don't confuse
however, instrumental behaviour steered by media, or strategic use of
communication, with discoure oriented toward truth (as opposed to rightness
or sincerity) claims. Discourse concerned with scientific/technical/matters
of fact types of issues are still very much within the provence of
communicative rationality.  But as such they are not immunized against
moral/practical challenges.


>Can anyone shed light on how this process narrows the repetoire of
>acceptable human behavior which gives rise to "new social movements"
>and/or the distinction between New Social Movements and the
>varios Neoconservative movements?

You may want to look at the essays in Habermas's *The New Conservativism*
especially with respect to the latter.



_________________________
Lenny Moss
   Department of Philosophy
   Northwestern University