Ethical foundations of the left

[Kenneth MacKendrick]

At 11:10 PM 7/31/01 +0000, you wrote:

>I am clueless, This seems to beg all the questions that I said it it. I 
>am, say, a slavemaster. I say, Slave, build me a pyramid. You, the slave, 
>say,, You know, Habermas teaches that you can't say that and expect to be 
>understood without implicitly presupposing that we are free and equal 
>particpants in a noncercive speech situation, so even talking to me shows 
>that you are committed to the view that you have no right to give that command.

Actually, that would be the case. But let's be careful about this. Habermas 
argues that the *structure* of speech - the pragmatic function of speech as 
mediating our consciousness - is communicative. In other words, the telos 
of communication is understanding. Yes, this is an abstract proposition. 
What are two people doing when they talk to one another - whether they are 
friends or enemies - they are communicating, trying to understand one 
another. The communicative bond is at the heart of *all* social relations 
that have to do with human understanding. If a slavemaster speaks to a 
slave, they do so with the intention that the slave will understand them. 
This presupposes that the slave has the capacity to understanding. Even in 
a command, there is an expression of communicative solidarity. Now, please, 
think this through carefully. Communicative solidarity, which is a term I'm 
introducing here (it isn't found in Habermas) to express the idea that we 
speak in order to be understood. I submit that it is possible to speak 
without conscious intention, like when you stub your toe. I'm not going to 
include that as communication, even if these kind of expressions have 
meaning as such, it is accidental to the social relation. To give someone 
an order is to express an intention, the expression is linguistic in 
nature. It is through the very medium of the intersubjective relation, 
mediated by language, that the idealization takes place. One might object, 
but sometimes people know full well that what they say to people will not 
be understood (I'm rapidly getting that impression on this list) before 
they say something. And yet, they say it anyway; usually louder and slower 
than normal. I'd qualify this as magical behaviour, which is probably more 
idealistic than I'm interested in. But, to the commander. The command is 
spoken, with  the intention that the slave will understand the order and 
obey. This is an idealization. Obvoiusly, if the slave disobeys, the 
commander can assume a variety of things, here is two the slave didn't 
understand (which will likely prompt anther command or the slave will be 
killed), the slave did understand and is refusing to obey orders (and the 
commander will likely kill the slave). In the first case, you can object: 
what if the slaveowner gave the command, and planned to kill the slave 
anyway, regardless of whether they carried out the order or not and 
regardless of whether they understood or not - this would seem to be the 
most instrumental use of language conceivable: from the perspective one 
prepared to act (to murder) - the linguistic utterance is irrelevant to 
what follows. But you can see, however, that whatever actions surround a 
speech act - the structure of understanding does not change. I fully 
acknowledge that we live our lives with instrumental intent.

If we accept that to learn a language one must learn the rules, which are 
always abstract and 'ideal' types. Communication is no different. In order 
to communicative, we have to know 'the rules.' These aren't 'rules' in the 
sense of a game, not really. They don't 'exist' in an objective sense, but 
they are constitutive of our interaction relations. Habermas is making a 
rather strong claim, that all forms of communication essentially function 
the same way. If you agree with Chomsky about his notion of language and 
linguistic competence of a language, then you won't have any real truck 
with Habermas, who simply calls linguistic competence communicative 
competence; he appropriates Chomsky's model for his own purposes. Drawing 
on a range of linguistic theories, Habermas argues that communicative 
structures are universal, in the same sense that 'grammar' is inherent to 
language.This is not to say that the grammar is identical in all places, 
which would be an absurd argument. But the logic of 'a grammar' in the 
context of language is coherent. Not being a linguistic, I can't say much 
about this. There was a prof here at the UofT in the Religious Studies 
department who argued that there are two kinds of languages - those based 
on an alphabet and those based on pictures (my apologies, I haven't read 
the book, I can't remember the name of the prof, I just recall something 
mentioned in a seminar as it came to a close some six years ago). The idea 
of a language based on pictures (there was a technical term, with a latin 
root I think) does not contradict Habermas's thesis, it contradicts 
Chomsky's (I haven't read Chomsky either, I'm relying on Habermas's 
account). A means of communicating that operates differently that the one 
Habermas describes is, well, almost unthinkable. What would it mean to have 
a social relation with someone without a communicative structure, a 
structure based on understanding, which serves the purpose of social 
exchange and social reproduction?

In short, a communicative relation exists whenever there is more than one 
person involved and understanding one another is an element in their 
relation. Note, I say communicative relation, not communicative action. The 
distinction is important.

The master and slave have a communicative relation, unless the master is 
simply beating the slave and there is absolutely no exchange whatsoever. If 
language is involved, the relation is communicative, however asymmetrical, 
distorted, deceitful and so on.

Communicative *action* are those relations whereby participants in a 
practical discourse are working together to coordinate their actions 
consensually. In this sense, communicative action is teleological: 
understanding and agreement is the end -- and purposive, the goal is to act 
in accord with others. We engage in communicative action far less (if ever) 
than we engage in communicative relations. Habermas is arguing that in 
instances of communicative action, only the force of the better argument 
carries weight. In instances of communicative action, we make four 
thematically distinct idealizations: that what we say is comprehensible (it 
is a well formed sentence, for instance), that what we say is about 
something (facts), that what we say is normative (in the sense of 
regulative), and that what we say is honest (that we're not faking 
communicative action). Any four of these can be challenged. The most 
serious challenge, of course, is honesty. If you think someone is lying, 
this will prompt others (most likely) to take up instrumental actions 
toward the non-truthful person. The first point, comprehensibility, is the 
least problematic, it is straightforward. When we talk, we assume we will 
be understood. The question or facts and norms is the most controversial. 
One person claims one set of facts, and another a different set of facts. 
In instances of communicative action, disputes along both of these lines 
lead to argumentation: where anyone in the process can say yes or no to any 
of the propositions regarding fact sand norms. The decision will be decided 
upon by good reasons *insofar* as the participants are interested in 
conducting their actions consensually. If this breaks, at any point, then 
we are not talking about communicative action.

All Habermas is saying is that this is possible.

That's his theory of communicative action in as few words as I can manage it.

Habermas moral theory of discourse is an extension of this. If this is 
possible, then what does the moral point of view look like? Well, until an 
actual discourse (Habermas's term for communicative action) takes place, we 
can't say. We cannot determine ahead of time what is and what is not moral. 
But, Habermas does argue we can justify the conditions under which a moral 
conversation could take place: under the rubric of communicative action. We 
can consider a norm valid that meets (or could meet) with the approval of 
all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse.

Should we treat people as equal? A theory of communicative action and a 
moral theory of discourse cannot answer that question. But - they can 
provide a philosophical justification for the conditions required for such 
a question to be answered that could be considered legitimate.

Can this be put into practice? Theory doesn't address its own self-application.

The question is this: is this a fair and accurate assessment of 
communicative structures? that's Habermas's question too, and he's been 
struggling with it since the early 60s.

I decided not to mention the ISS or UCC or ICC because, as Habermas admits, 
it causes more trouble than it is worth. I should have paid more attention 
to that.

ken