Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 23:05:05 -0800 From: Gary <gedavis-AT-pacbell.net> Subject: HAB: Is Kantian morality irrelevant to practical reason? Though I want to discuss “...Employments...” further, I know that nothing can be resolved about Habermas’ thinking strictly on the basis of that essay. But, in view of the first chapter of _Between Facts and Norms_, it’s clear that “...Employments...” provides a precise indication of Habermas’ sense of the difference between the ethical and the Kantian moral interest. My conjecture that the moral interest is really a pragmatic extension of an ethical interest into social environments of alienated interests (though Habermas wouldn't agree) is strongly corrorborated by the beginning of _BFN_ (and the 1994 “Postscript” to BFN), as well as by Habermas’ defense of a moral point of view (unsatisfactorily, to me) against Bernard Williams’ “Aristotelian” view of philosophy in one section of Habermas’ “Remarks on Discourse Ethics,” in _Justification and Application_. I believe that Habermas has an unnecessarily constrained sense of the ethical interest that is apparently motivated by his commitment to a Kantian notion of the autonomy of the will that, I believe, is unnecessary to his discourse theory of democracy, if the ethical interest is given fair scale (in light of "higher" educational processes), and I will show how this is the case (not this weekend, though). I want to defend the ethical interest against a sense of the Kantian moral interest that gives the latter (according to Habermas) a unique and necessary place in a theory of democratic law, which I think is implausible and unnecessary to Habermas' democratic project. It’s my contention that, apart from the sense of morality that is just as well served by traditions of specifically *ethical* discourse, the Kantian remainder is an implausible account of the reality and basis of democratic deliberation; and the Kantian sense of universalism is unnecessary for a discourse ethic that can accomplish what Habermas would have it accomplish. In order to contribute to an *advance* of Habermas’ discourse theory of democratic social evolution that seems more realistic, I want to argue for the dissolution of the moral interest in pragmatic transpositions of *ethical* solidarity into social environments as law. What is moral, that is not especially ethical, is the interest in pragmatic transpositions of ethical understanding into general forms of law, but *not* actually with Kantian aspiration. The “moral” interest, apart from the ethical interest, is wholly derivative of ethical interests, but relative to *pragmatic* aspirations for a generalization and institutionalization of ethical insights throughout social environments, which can be done validly in light of a democratic discourse ethic without Kantian moralism. An ethical foundation to Habermas’ theory of democracy is not only in keeping with the basic requirement of Habermas’ theory of democratic legality that “the law draws its socially integrating force from the sources of social solidarity” (BFN 40), which are ethical (not moral, in the Kantian sense), but an ethical foundation shifts the weight of democratic ideality from the potential of law to ensure democratic process (which deserves to be advanced in its own right) to the potential of *education* to advance the communicative scale of the neighborhood in particular political deliberations (which decreases the “facticity” of law). This may seem like an odd view, pushing the potential of ethical solidarity to heights that rival the ideality of a Kantian morality. But I will show that an educational interest in advancing the “autonomy of the will” in *ethical* terms (not an ethical appropriation of a Kantian idea) is truer to the historical reality of political deliberation than a Kantian legislator who would act in the name of all of humanity presently. But I’m not ready to make the case this weekend, sorry to say. * * * Opening my trusty _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ (1967), which is a good indicator of what philosophy in America traditionally took itself to be, I find no entry on morality. Rather, I’m referred to the encyclopedia’s long article on “Religion and morality” (and the article on the history of ethics), which reminds me of the origin of “morality” in the *law* of God, whose *exemplarity* was advanced by revelatory writers for the sake of a largely illiterate community as the basis of “law” that, like the mysteries of nature, universally pervade reality with a force that one has a duty to respect, if one wants to survive. As the universe is the product of God’s generosity, so His example is a “universal” law pervading nature. This longing to embody a universality inherent to nature itself became incorporated in Platonic Christianity as the corporation of a Church that strives to be catholic (i.e., universal) through ecumenical imperialism. As science forced a differentiation of the “laws” of nature from the Law of God, Man sought to transpose the universalism of the Church into a universe of secular jurisprudence. As an American Revolution swept the British colonies and a French Revolution captured the imagination of Europe, Kant hoped for a cosmopolitan domain of legislation that spoke for all mankind. But the German Idea did not in fact prevail. Rather, Romantic ideas of individual perfectability (Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, etc.), which are basically ethical rather than moral in the Kantian sense, seem to me to have had a prevailing role in the evolution of the few longstanding constitutional societies. Only after World War II has there emerged universalistic discourse in a real way, exemplified by the UN, but now with a sense of global village that reduces universalism to rather tangible realities of intercontinental trade, global markets, and the controversial prospect of an international neighborhood enforcing regional agreements relative to transgressive “persons”. In fact, the globalization of the communication community has revealed the “universe” to be the neighborhood of a small planet, where nations interact (whether in concert through the U.N. or, almost always, in 1-to-1 strategic partnerships) like corporate “persons”. The ethical venue of the intersubjective group (and problems of strategic egocentrism within it), working on the basis of solidarity (or compensating for a lack of this) to manage conflicts among members who all know each other in the same neighborhood, seems to be an adequate model of the "universe". In practice, the Kantian dream seems to have become antedated by technological shrinking of the distance to the Other in historical venues that don’t dream of legislating in the name of humanity, except in *ethical* terms of substantive human rights that pertain to human perfectibility. I could be misguided. And I can accept that---in light of good arguments. But an ethical foundation of democratic theory has a lot of appeal, I wish to argue, especially if a Kantian idea of morality is outdated and unnecessary to Habermas' discourse theory of democratic law. Thanks again for your interest! Gary --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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