Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 13:36:19 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: HAB: Re: communicative attitude and justificatory force


On my puzzlement about whether communicative attitudes of discourse
particiants are a necessary basis for the justificatory force of
agreements reached or merely enhance the chances of actual discursive
success, I think my hesitation to take the position you do (although I
find it appealing) stems from my sense that the idealizations which confer
justificatory force on agreements reached are all contained in (i.e.,
expressable as) the rules of discourse and are not qualities possessed by
participants.  If taking a communicative attitude merely means complying
with the rules of discourse, then there would be no problem since there'd
be a sort of material equivalence.  But taking a communicative attitude
seems to entail arguing in the spirit of the rules of discourse, not
merely in accordance with them--kind of an "aus Pflicht" thing.  But if
this is so, and it seems to be, then the justificatory force of agreements
reached in discourses is based not only on the rules of discourse but also
on qualities of the participants.  In that case, at least some of the
"competencies, attitudes, and values" of discourse participants are more
than success-facilitating (thus basically motivational in nature) but are
also an additional basis (along with the rules of discourse) for the
justificatory force of agreements reached in discourse.  This conclusion,
however, blurs the worthwhile distinction between justification and
motivation, which raises the danger of the justificatory force of
agreements reached in discourse (and not merely their chances of being
reached) depending on substantive characteristics of particpants as well
as on the procedural conditions of argumentation.  This runs the risk of
both overburdening discourse participants and of circularly privileging
certain values (which does not happen when they are merely
success-facilitating and not a basis of justificatory force of
agreements).  It may well be, however, that a communicative attitude is
severable from other characteristics of discourse participants that are
merely success-facilitating and not bases of justificatory force.  In this
view, a communicative attitude, unlike other competencies and values of
partipants, could be seen as something of an extension of the rules of
discourse into participants, a quality of participants to be sure but one
that is itself based on rules of discourse--namely, arguing not just in
accord with them but in their spirit.  If this is at all clear, then
communicative attitudes, unlike other competencies and values of
participants, can be conceptually tied to the rules of discourse, which
would allow them to play a justificatory role without utterly undermining
the distinction between justification and motivation on which so much
rests.  Maybe Habermas's use of the phrase "rationally motivated
agreement" to describe the justificatory force of discursive agreement, 
which seems paradoxical in light of the distinction between justification
and motivation, coheres with this limited and exceptional inclusion of
particiants' communicative attitudes as a motivational factor which
nonetheless is a basis for the justificatory force of discursively reached
agreements.  So I provisionally conclude that a communicative attitude of
discourse participants is, along with the rules of discourse, a necessary
basis for the justificatory force of discursively achieved agreements,
despite its being a personal characteristic of participants, because of
its essential connection to the rules of discourse.

Vic Peterson



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