Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 00:34:49 -0500 From: Scott Johnson <sjohn-AT-cp.duluth.mn.us> Subject: Re: HAB: Universality and Particularity THIS IS THE COMPLETE VERSION OF THE POST. kenneth.mackendrick wrote: > > > SCOTT: > > GRRRR! First, when you bitch that the class of everyone is > no one in particular, you have an emptiness problem. Second, > I want to point out that there IS no answer to the questions > "Why be moral?" and "Why be rational?" The problem is that > they can arise! You ARE moral, you ARE rational. You will fall > into performative contradiction when you deny it. > > I have no cognitive evidence - by any coherent standard of > rationality or morality that i am rational or moral. And neither do I have any evidence of your rationality. > How do we > know morality exists? Simply because someone says they > are moral is probably not enough - we can't take things at face > value. Habermas argues that you MUST obey the procedures > of reason in a post-traditional way if you are going to be > rational or moral at all. I disagree with the argument that one > enters into a performative contradiction if by refusing to feel > obligated to participate in this particular vision of rationality - > because we have to enter into the procedure to validate the > procedure - and once we enter we have no assurances that > such a procedure will be validated OR non-oppressive. Yeah, but Ken, why should I care if it's non-oppressive? Aren't you assuming I care? Are you trying to foist some foreign standard of rightness on me? Why should I stand for that? So it's oppressive; who said there had to be some universal law that oppression is to be avoided? And whose rationality determines that? After what I've written, how can you continue to insist that rationality is external to you? You proceed rationally when you criticize, that is, you reflect on the merely given (say, a "particular vision of rationality") and demand that it justify itself. The standard by which you judge is a concrete one which proceeds from the lifeworld and is expressed in the practice of criticism. This is not rationality itself, rather the act of reflection and criticism is. When you demand to be allowed to opt out of a "particular vision of rationality", why do you bother giving reasons if you believe that there are none which I should necessarily accept? Why not just say, like the moral sceptic in MCCA, that you simply will not participate? You fall into a performative contradiction when you act rationally to deny rationality. I have a problem with Habermas's insistence on the post-traditional nature of modernity -- this is of a piece with his unwillingness to explicitly affirm the situatedness of his own thinking. What he means to say is that we are reflective and question tradition in a way that makes it impossible to eliminate the element of reflection of a "disengaged" subjectivity and just go back to a given, traditional order. What is different is the standard of rationality which developed with ideal of the the disengaged subjectivity, a standard of objectivity independent of the particular subject. The universality of this standard, abstracted from all particularity, is a necessary element of modern moral agency. This goes for yourself and your critical activity. I say the this development is situated within this particular culture, and yet is of universal significance. As much as you may want to deny that this moment of universality is a merely particular expression of this particular culture, you yet advance this tradition in your criticism as you embody this kind of rationality. > This > is precisely why i think his proceduralism is a problem. Not > because it does not express one form of rationality but > because it claims to encompass all possible forms of > rationality. WTF? The structure of rationality involves reflection, reasons, and argument. A "form of rationality" differs in what the ground of reasons is. What is rational in a sphere of particularity is general to that sphere -- concretely universal. This lies in the lifeworld. The way of approach to that for a rational, reflective agent in a culture which has institutionalized such agency is through reflection, reasons, and argument. Proceduralism intitutionalizes the discourse within which "forms of rationality" can develop. Some forms of rationality will indeed be excluded -- those which impede the medium in which "forms of rationality" can develop from within. For example: much as I would like to argue for the dignity of Muslim tradition, how can we view the "authoritarian" and "hierarchal" nature of this tradition (its grounding in a cosmic order) and, say, its treatment of women, or its categorical demonization of the West, as merely neutral? (I know...there is no monolithic "Muslim tradition" for which this always holds true. Note that if the mystical traditions differ, it is yet again based on a cosmological vision.) You would have nothing to say here, Ken, unless you were willing to make the sort of rational moral argument you think is necessarily oppressive. Habermas could argue that this "form of rationality" is deficient when it comes to providing for the medium in which the modern reflective moral agent could move -- and you cannot sensibly argue against the value of modern moral agency because you embody it in arguing against it. This criticism is not wholly external. It merely opens the tradition to the voices of those who could challenge the claim to universality which had hitherto rested unchallenged on cosmology. As soon as the cosmology is questioned, the standard becomes not a cosmic order -- the way the world is -- but is based on the will, a vision of the way the world SHOULD be. It is still a will grounded in a tradition, but one which can criticize ITSELF. > we have the problem of how are > we going to solve concrete moral problems when they arise? > I would argue that these need to be addressed in practice not > in theory and would also contend that these can only be > examined on a local basis. Yes - my argument is theoretical - > which means i am only reflecting of how problems could be > addressed... i am not speaking to the actual resolution of > problems. Ken! Habermas could have written this! A procedural ethics lets these substantive problems be solved in practice as they arise. Habermas means to put us out of the business of moral philosophy and engage us as moral agents. -- --------------------------------------------------------- Scott Johnson 105 W. 1st St. #214 sjohn-AT-cp.duluth.mn.us Duluth, MN 55802 voice/fax (218) 722-1351 http://www.cp.duluth.mn.us/~sjohn/sjohn_on.html -- Ask a professor what she thinks of the work of Stephen Greenblatt, a leading critic of Shakespeare, and you'll hear it for an hour. Ask her what her views are on Shakespeare's genius and she's likely to begin questioning the term along with the whole "discourse of evaluation." -- Mark Edmundson, in the Sept.`97 issue of Harper's. From his essay "On the Uses of a Liberal Education: I. As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students" --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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