Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:14:37 +0300
Subject: Re: HAB: Normativity


Fred Welfare wrote:

> Rauno,  Thanks for the post, I hope you will put your article on this list.  I
> agree with you that Habermas in BFN seems to loosen up on the categorical
> division between CA and SA.  

That is our opinion. I'm not sure does
Habermas himself thinks that way. But
BFN present sophisticated model of legal
communication and it is unrealistic to
deny the role of strategic action in
that process. 

> What Habermas seems to being saying about CA is that law has overtaken the
> burden of moral judgement and action by laying down a code of permissable
> behavior and thus serving as a form of social integration.  Instead of
> individuals being required to act and judge morally, as Kant/Rousseau would
> presume, political legislators do all the work.

If and when political legislators do all
the work, we have serious legitimation
problem and real shortage of democracy,
serious gap between actual norm and
legitimate way of doing things. Habermas
tries to gather the gap between
facticity and validity by constructing
formal model of democratic legislation.
I'm not sure is there inherent
requirement of metaphysics of "good
will" (Kant). Does this model actually
require that individual behave according
to some metaphysical moral law. Maybe
the Habermas's model isn't so
"postconventional" or "postmetaphysical"
that he thinks.


Rauno Huttunen


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