File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_1997/habermas.9708, message 45


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"


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