Date: 	Wed, 24 Sep 1997 12:54:35 -0400
From: "kenneth.mackendrick" <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: HAB: On the Difference between Moral and Ethical Reason


Michael and Scott,

Ok - so you've got your community all around you - your 
ethical collective.  Your discussing issues with them - both 
good reasons and not-so-good reason are on the table.  Both 
are included in ethical collective self-formation because the 
concrete other is completely involved.

Now you want to shift to a universalist discourse - following a 
Habermasian procedure.  You invite more people but no 
everyone shows up because your town hall only fits 55,000.  
The aim here is to articule a moral point of view.  You follow 
the procedure - table all ideas - not-so-good reasons are 
discarded because they are nongeneralizable interests - good 
reasons are left on board.  You narrow the field.  One principle 
left.  It meets the consent of all present.  Everyone thinks that 
everyone else who didn't show up would or could agree to it.

How does this differ from ethical discourse? except through 
imagination?

Lets say in Canada is a country of wacky drivers.  It is in our 
ethical self-interest to limit the speed that cars can travel to 
100km/hr.  We recognize that every other countries might 
have better technology and better drivers so this is not a 
universal principle (no land-based vehicles over 100km/hr).

ok ok - silly example.  speeds limits are ethical concerns and 
not moral ones - since they COULD NOT be universalized - but 
the idea "one should not drive to fast lest he or she kill 
others" is probably the underlying point.  But like i mentioned 
- this idea must come first - the moral perspective - and the 
ethical perspective tailors its application for a community.  Of 
course the ethical discussions will affect the moral ones - but 
the limits of ethical discourse prevent them from completely 
engaging the moral conversations - because they are oriented 
by different audiences and criterion.

When the community shifts to a moral orientation - to 
determine what principle underlies max land-based speeds - 
we can only imagine what would lead to a universal 
consensus.  Scott says that we must envision what *MUST* 
be true of others.  This involves imagination - since the MUST 
could only be determined intersubjectively.  Scott is arguing, i 
think, that this can be determined strategically - as a matter of 
induction or deduction.  Like Habermas said - the moral 
discursive  community is counterfactual - anticipated because 
of its nonpresence.  Moral principles, i would argue, cannot be 
determined by technical reason alone - a degree of emphatic 
reason MUST also be use - for pragmatic reasons 
and ethical reasons!

Reducing morality to deductions by instrumental reason 
stemming from ethical conversations is not only boring its 
inhumane.  If we MUST do anything (and i KNOW that we 
don't) we must be open to anything - anticipating whatever 
with non dogmatic ideas yet grasping it in our concreteness.

have no fear - the anticipated other will come - just not 
everyone at once.
ken

PS.  i know people disagree with my emphatic bit - but is my 
take on Habermas correct? or am i missing something 
regarding ethical and moral discussions.  i read the article 
fairly closely - and was intrigued by his plea for the imaginary 
- which Michael and Scott both seem to discard.

Scott is concerned with my imagination running wild.  I am 
concerned with the impotence of formal logic in matters of 
human relations (if moral considerations are going to be 
moral the MUST come first - before ethical deliberations.  
Michael is concerned about the abstract tendency of moral 
theory - which he thinks, if i read him correctly, would have to 
come first if habermas is right.  I am arguing that it can only 
be determined negatively in light of ethical considerations.  
such a negative determination involves the imagination.  you 
cannot simply deduce the bottom line (justice) in a rational 
way simply from ethical arguments.  if reason includes 
anticipation and emancipation - then it is not solely a matter of 
formal and communicative logic.  maybe i'm wrong

In habermas's earlier work he talked about the disclosure of 
nonidentity in discourse.  if he invokes the idea of nonidentity 
he cannot escape the faculty that picks up on it.




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