Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 10:38:07 +0800
From: rgeeland-AT-cc.curtin.edu.au (David Geelan)
Subject: HAB: Schomberg, Value Spheres and Discourse


I'd like to thank Rene von Schomberg for his excellent paper, and for
offering it in this list.

I enjoyed it enormously, and believe  it has the potential to spark some
interesting discussion in the group, which has been fairly moribund lately.

Dr Schomberg's outlining of the crisis situation is excellent, and brings
together threads about which I had been thinking for some time, without
being able to bring them together. The necessity of acting on environmental
problems without full knowledge or consensus is perhaps the most important
challenge facing humanity at the end of the century (particularly since the
threat of Atomigeddon seems to have receded).

I find myself unable, however, to agree with Dr Schomberg's suggested
solution. He suggests that discourse theory applies *between* the value
spheres of science, politics and ethics, and that such discourse needs to
be supported in order to overcome the 'erosion of our value spheres'. While
the development of new institutions intended to support discursive
procedures may be theoretically attractive, in my opinion the tendency of
all such intitutions will be to slide toward bureaucracy and an exclusively
technical/rational approach to the issues at hand.

He also suggests that there is a tension between involvement of "ordinary
people" and the quality of decisions made - perhaps a reversion to
'philosopher-kings' as a model of decision making?

As a (very tentative) alternative to Dr Schomberg's approach, I would
suggest that value spheres are themselves only a device, a particular
choice out of the multiplicity and complexity of human experience. As such,
they have value in that they draw our attention to certain concepts and
phenomena. They can also tend to blind us to other concepts and phenomena.

The value spheres model, then, ought to be used where it is valuable, and
discarded where it is unable to act: alternative models and construals of
the world will shed light in the areas which that model leaves dark.
Discourse theory, then, rather than a subordinated adjunct to the value
spheres, intended to shore them up and prevent their erosion, becomes a
powerful alternative model for looking at the world. And there are a
multiplicity of others. (This perspective owes much to Paul Feyerabend.)

If these models and theories and perspectives are used eclectically and
selectively, two important benefits result:

1. Ordinary people, the general public, are enabled to participate in the
discourse and influence the life-and-death issues of protecting the
environment and promoting more just and fulfilling forms of life, rather
than excluded as 'not competent'. Their own perspectives and value
frameworks are valued.

2.  Habermas' 'technical', 'practical' and 'emancipatory' interests are
more likely to be incorporated into the discourse, whereas an institutional
approach would tend to value and promote the technical rationality at the
expense of all others.

If I have misunderstood Dr Schomberg's paper I apologise, and will no doubt
be set straight by the members of the list!

Regards,

David