Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 08:42:59 -0500
From: Deborah Kilgore <kilgore-AT-unix.tamu.edu>
Subject: Re: HAB: On the difference between moral and ethical reason


Hello, all!

This is the first time dipping my toe into these waters in which I have
lurked for more than a year...I am a beginner in this area, so forgive the
lateness of this contribution, and maybe the naivete:

I found the article and other readings of Habermas, difficult writer though
he may be, quite a helpful lens through which to view my own problems, and
even though Gary says  "Some readers of Habermas (or any other difficult
writer) defer their own project of self-clarification and genuineness of
engagement with Habermas' work by *requiring* that his texts be rather
directly applicable to their own problems," I hope that I am not doing this.
On the other hand, what Gary says is sort of ironic, in the sense that we
are forewarned to read Habermas in a decontextualized manner, and then
Habermas in this same article talks about the problem of taking morals that
are decontextual and trying to apply them to the particular.  (and i'm not
well read enough to take up the problem of the invisible woman in Habermas,
but give me another year and maybe i'll give it a go!)

anyway,

Habermas seems to distinguish ethics from morality in this way:  (1) ethics
are something that can be understood from a constructivist perspective; we
negotiate ethical modes of behavior with the other members of our community
within the context of particular situations and within our sociocultural
moment (2) morals are essentially decontextual; they are developed in the
abstract (by representing others in our imaginations!) and thus can become
problematic when applied to the particular.

In ethical discourse, intersubjectivity is key.  The collective meanings,
some in constructivist learning theory call them "taken as shared," give us
a general way to conduct our lives within our community, and also leave us
free to follow our muse.

In moral discourse, some "universal" norms for moral behavior are given and
perhaps, challenged.  Social movements develop because some decontextualized
universals, when applied to the particular, actually opress certain people
or groups of people.

Sidebar:  Is this an example of the problem with applying the moral to the
particular?  when (anti-abortion person and former US VP) Dan Quayle was
asked what he would do if his young daughter got pregnant, he said he'd have
to let her make her own decision.

It seems to me that what Habermas is arguing is a change in our notion of
morality.  Instead of a decontextualized "modern rational natural law," we
need to recognize where morality actually lies, "...the plane of
institutionalized procedures and communicative presuppositions of processes
of argumentation and negotiation that must actually be carried out" (p. 16).  

Everything up to now may seem sort of straightforward, but here is where
Habermas seems to help me with my particular problem:  A subtle difference
in how morals are critiqued is proposed.  Rather than challenging oppression
in the name of some particular given-as-universal -- critiquing the
universal for its application in the particular, we do better to critique
the process by which given-as-universals are developed.  "Whose morals are
these, anyway? How did they get this way?"  Challenging a particular
given-as-universal itself is simply killing the wasp.  Dissecting the system
is destroying the nest.

The difference, then between ethical and the moral arguments, I think lies
in the terrain in which the argument exists:  for the ethical it is the
intersubjective community (lifeworld).  for the moral, it is the attempt to
coordinate various diverse communities under one law of the land with
administrative and legal institutions (system).  

Anyway, this all may be old news to you, but I'd be interested in what you
think.  Is this new person on the right track?

- deb





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