Subject: RE: HAB: Interest in Social Change
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 17:34:41 -0500





> [Original Message]
> From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
> To: HAB <habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
 > Date: 1/5/2003 5:00:24 AM
> Subject: HAB: Interest in Social Change
>
> Re: Matt, "Children of the Enlightenment," 26 Dec.
> 
> M> Doesn't [the following] risk conflating the moral
> interest with self-interest?
> 
> G>>...Desire, need and idealization are the basis of [M>>>
> "social change"] interests, and they arise *anyway*, be it
> in the flow of a good life or in a less than good life
> prior to their frustration. Dissolution of anomie, etc.,
> *results* in a good flow of articulate desire, need, and
> idealization, which is naturally motivating.
 
F: In Towards a Rational Society, Habermas clearly describes how  social
interests invent needs and values
which are subsequently imposed by plitical practices.

> G: No. Where's the risk?  
> 
> If interest in social change is *genuine*, it must be
> compelled by the real interests of those who desire, need
> and idealize specific changes; moral evaluation of
> interests don't look like an issue of genuine articulation
> of these interests.

F: Unless the evaluation is part of a scientifically informed public
discussion.
 
> The specificity of shared interest implies participation of
> interested parties in the shared articulation of the
> desire, need or ideal of social change. A *social* interest
> in change is what the interest in social change genuinely
> is, and it requires participation to gain definition.
> Moreover, social change is best conceived as a
> participatory venture by those who have an interest in it.
> Participation in social change requires motivation that
> arises genuinely from lifeworld interests, if the change is
> to be validly expressive of those who are interested in it.

F: The State has repeatedly during the past era of modernism
authoritatively imposed sweeping programs of social engineering upon their
populations: Germany, Russia, US, Africa, usually being resisted and ending
in failure.  Social change is all too often forced.
> 
> *Among* results of a change process may be *normative*
> arrangements (or matters of normative validity). But there
> can't be normative validity without genuine assent to
> arrangements proposed as normative. So, an aggregate
> genuineness of the approval process is necessary for norm
> formation. EVALUATION of the deservedness of a proposed 
> norm can be a matter of this---a matter of the genuineness
> of processOR it may be a matter of "moral" evaluation,
> regarding general social values. 
> 
> A problem of conflation doesn't belong to the interest in
> social change. nt of the 

F: Of course, the issue has been the validity of the process of
implementation and whether it involves the cooperation
of the manipulated group.  Observers can quickly notice whether a forum for
public discussion has occured or whether objections and other forms of
input have been considered by the planners and/or practicioners.
> -------------------------------------------------
> M>>> An ethic of care ...carries a lot of justificatory
> baggage, ....
> 
> G>> [Not at all].... the intuitive appeal of an ethic of
> care *begins* pre-philosophically. ....Adults know quite
> intuitively the self-esteeming value of caring for self and
> others, and caring about issues. The humanitarian sense of
> care is not difficult to appreciate. Standards of care have
> normative appeal based in apprehensions of care in our
> lives. Duties of care can easily be understood as
> derivative of lifeworld-based standards of intimate and
> humanitarian care.
> 
> M> .... Even if the "is" is granted - ("Adults know quite
> intuitively the self-esteeming value of caring for self and
> others, and caring about issues.") - and this intuition is
> by no means universal - then there remains a justificatory
> gap when translating the questionable fact of this
> intuition into any sort of ought.
> 
> G: I see no problem in justifying care, and I see no
> problem in claiming that others ought to care for
> themselves. If you object that you ought to care for
> yourself, what could be the non-pathological basis of the
> objection? Also, on what basis would you object that one
> should care about others? Tendencies toward sociopathology
> need to be addressed not basically as moral problems, but
> as clinical problems, since the normative basis of care in
> healthy family, social and educational experiences is
> easily explicable. The justification of an ethic of care
> comes from *knowledge* about healthy family, social, and
> educational processes that has normative appeal and a real
> basis. That "this intuition is by no means universal" is
> part of why we need social workers, special needs
> educators, community development programs and NGOs in
> post-colonial nations, etc.
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Gary
> 
> 



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