Date: 	Sun, 30 Mar 1997 17:38:39 -0500
From: "kenneth.mackendrick" <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: Habermas and Social Action



Scott wrote:
> It is, believe it or not, HISTORICAL, TRADITIONAL. Liberalism, and all
> it has spawned (including postmodernism), is a historical tradition
> which needs to be--criticized! Your very own insistence on individuality
> and particularity is traditional; this doesn't mean it is worthless, but
> that it is not an unshakeable, ahistorical, "transcendental" ground from
> which to criticize. In fact, I was arguing, Liberalism denies its own
> character as traditional. Justice, the ideal of liberalism, is itself a
> substantive conception of the good life, but one that--I would argue--is
> contradictory. You say:
> 
> > A consensus could only ever be reached by force or bargaining.  
> > Please - show me consensus.  Put it in my hand.  Please.  Just one 
> > example.
> 
> This is my example. Liberalism and offshoots, its associated commitments
> to the individual and his "irrational", "incommensurable" valuations.
> You are wrong that consensus can only be "reached by force or
> bargaining," because in fact it can be a traditional ground as well.
> This ground must criticize ITSELF, because there is no point outside
> from which to criticize. How would this work? When individuality and
> particularity--the good life, seen as individual and subjective--instead
> of being protected by the separation of the good life from morality, are
> trodden by the "objective" criteria which replace them as guidelines for
> collective action. The collective life commited to individuality and
> particularity would in fact produce a world that is the opposite of its
> intentions. When this happens, what is the proper course? To push the
> same conceptions further yet ("Universalism leaves out particularity!"),
> or to reflect on them and see where they are limited ("Gosh, I guess
> there IS something we all share. Our commitment to morality and justice
> is the other side of the same coin which is on its other face our
> rejection of universalism and "justice" because of its indifference to
> particularity, individuality, and ones identity as an orientation to the
> good life. There IS no radical separation of good life and morality.)
>    But then you yourself said this, didn't you?

Alright - i see that you're saying that "normativity must be created out of itself" 
through a critical historical reconstruction.  This is the great insight of Gadamer 
among others - the hermeneutic dimension of history, democrocracy, freedom etc.  
I'm still sceptical that Liberalism is an offshoot of a consensus (behind the backs of 
the participants?).  I am not trying to "reflect myself out of history."  I think you've 
marked the right stop when you noted that justice is a contradictory substantive 
element of the good life.  This really needs to be explored...  I'm also sceptical that 
Liberalism stems from an underlying consensus.... although i suppose it is a 
theoretical consensus being talked about here ("we could all agree that consensus 
is a worthwhile norm consensually")- and not one that has actually occurred.
> 
> > both need to be 
> > democratized - issues of the good and the just are entwined - and our 
> > social debates reflect this.  our identity is caught up with who we are 
> > and what we see to be good.
> 
> But in this case what would justification have to be like to be
> acceptable to someone who has reached this point of reflection? That is
> the real problem, one which I don't pretend to have solved. My belief is
> that here an encounter between Hegel and Habermas would be very
> fruitful. You wrote:
> 
> > The notion of a common idea of freedom relies on a metaphysical 
> > conception of freedom that EVERYONE has.  Nice to know Hegel 
> > figured it out for EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE at EVERYTIME.
> 
> What I mean by "common idea of freedom" is just what we both mean by
> "orientation to the good life". Yes, these are criticizable, and have in
> fact been criticized--to the point where there is dispair at a morality
> which has any content in this respect. Hegel meant to put the two
> (morality and the good life) back together, and part of his claim is
> that he has in fact discovered something about freedom that is true for
> "EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE at EVERYTIME." (You will probably balk at this.
> But you called yourself a proceduralist in your last post; is it out of
> order to ask what is valid for your procedure for "EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE
> at EVERYTIME?") Hegel is saying that freedom is the realization of a
> "metaphysical conception of freedom"/"vision of the good life" WHATEVER
> ITS CONTENT. The attempted realization of these will, he says, result in
> reversals, in the realization of the opposite of what was intended, due
> to the reflective inadequacies of those conceptions. Thus the
> justification of the CONTENT of morality (the conception of the "good
> life" which it presupposes and is oriented to) happens IN HISTORY. Once
> we know what Hegel says he has discovered about freedom, we can see
> those reversals--for the first time--FOR WHAT THEY ARE.
>    I'd better stop here. This is all rather off-the-cuff, and I don't
> want to go too far....


Yeh, you caught my contradiction pretty well - how can i be a proceduralist without 
positing a common ground....  well i don't have an answer yet.  Habermas's 
understanding of deontological proceduralism seems to be one invaluable element 
of justice - but does not exhaust the realm of the moral.  The idea of the good life 
and justice is something that, as a humanist, i think we all have in common - only 
as an abstraction devoid of content.  One of the things i'm interested in though is 
whether this abstraction retains an anti-humanistic element.  Has it posited a 
transcendental that reifies actual human beings.  This is where Habermas's idea of 
citizenship comes in.  He argues that it is sufficiently abstract to protect human 
beings from coersion in the private and public realm - but does it really?  Does the 
abstraction of a universal humanity serve to oppress those whose vision is 
contrary to such protection?  Can we conceive of this contradiction is such a way 
that it becomes more coherent?

I really wonder if the entire mess is actually a pseudoproblem that cannot really be 
solved since it involves contradictory and ambiguous concepts.  The moment we 
abstract away from individual human beings, the concepts we use lack the 
resources to find a practical element.  This is why Habermas uses abstract 
concepts in the first place - to avoid their coersive tendency while at the same time 
permitting common ground (in abstraction).  This abstraction is then a theoretical 
paradigm through which we find a common ground and then, through dialogue, use 
it to engage in practices.  A good positivist would simply say we only have practice 
and the task of theory is simply a mental maze.  I'm not a positivist however - and i 
think theory plays a role.  What i am really interested in is how these abstraction 
become reified - and loose their grounding in what we actually might have in 
common....  which, i suppose, is why i see adorno's negative dialectics as a 
particularly helpful model for approaching such ethical problems - more so that a 
theory of discourse (which, at the same time, is invaluable and irreplaceable).  This 
is all very fuzzy isn't it?

Kenneth G. MacKendrick
University of Toronto
Centre for the Study of Religion

"Whosoever has laughter on their side has no need of proof."
	- T.W. Adorno




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