Ethical foundations of the left

[Peter Kosenko]

I know you feel beleaguered, but my other brief
post was an attempt to get Justin to say
more on his side, not really a finalized
interpretation of Habermas (so you should 
probably respond to his response to THAT post).  I
am still on the fence about some things 
and people are probably not going to get me off it
right away.  

But I'll continue -- and respond below to your
response.

Actually, I'm not anti-Habermas (nor am I an
expert).  I read The Philosophical Discourse 
of Modernity last year and remember thinking that
it captured some of my own complaints 
about postmodernism.  In the paltry couple posts
that I have added here I have probably said things
that could be construed pro and con.  Pro, I'm not
an irrationalist.  I
think that inclusive public argument about social
issues that adheres to standards of
social fairness and "reason" is a good thing.  But
I'm not sure that "reason" or 
"reasonableness" is something that grows out of
"language use itself", 
which seems too easy.  

One of Justin's problems, also, seems to be that
he doesn't believe that an "ideal speech 
situation" is "built into" language in a way that
necessarily "gives rise" to reason somehow
by itself because people are "social beings" and
"need to understand one another,"
not that he doesn't share ideals of fair argument
and social justice.  And, like me, he probably
also would agree that human beings can and do
exhibit the ability to "understand" each other. 
But in what sense do you mean "understand"?  You
seem to be using it in a non-epistemological way,
investing it with human warmth.

But, it is perfectly possible to "understand"
someone but NOT be empathetic (which is also
required by the ISS).  In fact, I would say that
to be really good at evil, you should practice
understanding people so that you can fool and
exploit them, and learn to argue well so that you
can baffle them with bullshit (I'm not accusing
you of trying to do that, by the way -- you seem
perfectly honest in trying to explain yourself). 
And that is why I still keep 
thinking that the ISS is an IDEAL, not a
"precondition" of "communication" -- although you
could
say that deceit is an abuse of an human POTENTIAL
(you could have decided to acknowledge
their humanity and cooperate with them rather than
exploit them), and you could say that in order to
have a society at all, to some degree we have to
use language cooperatively (which proves the
POTENTIAL).
But then, damn, some of us cooperate in doing harm
to other people.

IS vs. OUGHT seems to be hanging me up.

Just read the concluding chapter of "Moral
Consciousness and 
Communicative Action."  There seems to be an
unspoken distinction between 
"communication" (which doesn't have to be
argumentative or all that conscious) and 
"discourse" (argumentation) there.  Argumentation
comes about when there is a
potential for disagreement (or difference in the
interests of
speakers).  The theory of "discourse ethics" is a
theory of how we OUGHT to resolve
those (and sometimes actually do), based on mutual
recognition of each other as 
human beings and individuals to be respected who
are rooted in a social context.

Are you sure that Habermas isn't just projecting
an overdose of what he feels OUGHT to 
be the case onto language (and is often the case,
but not always)?  Then arguing it adamantly 
to try to make the projection stick (which it can
do because we have the potential
to reach agreement and cooperate -- but consider
that that is also because we tend to be the kind
of
animal that develops strong affective ties and has
a strong imagination).  Is what we
are talking about just the human POTENTIAL to
argue and behave fairly?  Okay, we have
that potential and we can be raised and educated
to try to follow it.

The other thing that nags at me in the discussion
is the sense that there isn't
much talk of how one gets from HERE to THERE,
which it now occurs to me 
has been a background issue in what I have
written.  What do you do when so many
EDUCATED PEOPLE actually use language to justify
exploitation?  You can talk and 
talk about the ideal, you can cherish it, you can
put it in your closet shrine,
but how to you get from a society HERE to one
THERE that better realizes it (better
because we have agreed that it isn't something
that can be "perfectly" realized)?

Peter Kosenko

Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
> 
> At 04:43 AM 7/31/01 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >How about this.  The kinds of standards for
> >agreement that Habermas's ideal speech situation
> >hold out seem so high that it is unlikely that the
> >cafeteria worker next door to me will be able to
> >live up to them.
> 
> Right, Habermas goes on to say that the realization of the 'ideal speech
> situation' (which is easily misunderstood as a place) is impossible - and
> undesirable.
> 
> >   Does the ISS mean that she has
> >nothing to contribute to the social debate?  If
> >she's getting screwed economically, does she have
> >to wait until she can articulate a
> >marxo-neopragmatist-onto-metaphysical-speech-act
> >analysis before she's allowed to point out that
> >the restaurant industry and its legislative
> >corporate and anti-labor lawyers have screwed her
> >and her family yet again?  Or if she enjoys jazz
> >but can't explain why, should she not make her
> >pleasure known to the people at the local music
> >club?
> 
> See above. Habermas is making the hypothetical claim that when we speak
> with one another we 'enact' idealizations: like, the assumption that what
> we say could - potentially - be understood by another person. That's all.
> He goes on to say that we can derive, through theoretical inquiry, the
> conditions under which understanding could be guaranteed - "communication
> free from distortion." He knows that this is impossible in any substantial
> sense, yet, he does argue that we can approximate these conditions, or at
> least encourage them...

Yes, its a more social and non-a-priori version of
the Kantian categorical 
imperative (which in Kant remains an individual
thing we rehearse in our own 
isolated minds). I understand the above from what
you have written in other posts. 
Habermas is talking ethics, of course, but my
(probably inarticulate) questions have been 
about people (lawyers, etc.) who use their
understanding and linguistic
intelligence to take advantage of other people. 
"Discursive ethics" can't be
grounded purely in "communication" if realizing it
requires other preconditions,
like WILLINGNESS to listen to other people's
needs, and the willingness to let
them get to the table, and already the willingness
NOT to exploit them.

> >In other words, the ISS would seem to lend itself
> >to accomodating the voices only of those who are
> >educated enough to carry on the kind of extended
> >evidentiary analysis necessary to win academic
> >arguments.
> 
> I don't see how "no one should be excluded against their will" can be
> reduced to "only those voices educated enough carry weight."

Yes, I realize that that is Habermas's politics,
which I share.  But people
are regularly excluded, discouraged, shut up, and
by otherwise "educated"
people, who rule countries like Peru and run their
secret services.
 
> >Hence democracy comes BEFORE "ideal speech" (and
> >if such exists, is it really the kind of language
> >we find in Kant's Critique of Reason, or is it
> >less abstract?).  The former isn't "grounded" in
> >the later.  The later needs to grow out of the
> >former.
> 
> The idea of freedom comes before/with/though/within democracy.Ideal speech
> has nothing to do with it.

Maybe not clear enough.  The idea was that radical
democracy (more radical
than in the U.S.) seems to be a precondition of
the ethics that Habermas 
proposes (the other stuff I wrote in there because
it was late at night?).  
His ethics isn't based only on abstract principles
of argumentation or
"speech acts." 

I am baffled by how one is supposed to "get there"
(or closer to it).  By simply
"having" a discourse ethics?

When you started the thread, were you simply
suggesting that leftists "adopt" 
(have) a "discourse ethics"?  That we should talk
a lot about it, especially
to people in power?  That having it will take away
the power of those who don't 
and who don't want to encourage it?

I think Yoshie asked that question and you
suggested that she was abysmally wrong in calling
the ISS a "virtue"?  But it seems to me that it IS
an ideal (my translation of "virtue").


Peter Kosenko

> >Peter Kosenko
> 
> >P.S. By the way, I get Carrol's protest in tossing
> >a bunch of poetry up on the list.  He'd rather
> >read IT than 800 pages of Habermas.  It seems to
> >him to have more "flesh and bones" to it.
> 
> I know. I haven't been reading it. The thing is, Carrol is playing the role
> of intellectual terrorist. I don't mean that in a harsh sense. He's opting
> for the 'shock value' of a person resisting assimilation, which is great
> (really). It is important. But he's adopting this role as a reaction to the
> discussion on the list. We've seen (at least) two sides of Carrol, the
> shock-meister and the argumentative interlocutor. When I made, some 2 years
> ago, a comment about the 'chora' in Greek tragedy, Carrol jumped in with
> all sorts of good reasons for rejecting whatever I had said. 

He's adopting Wotjek's role.

> I think Carrol
> is holding out for the idea that we can choose to be communicative or
> instrumental, and now he's choosing to be instrumental, and refusing
> argumentation on the basis that instrumental actions can be... well...
> instrumental in fostering understanding. 

Or maybe he thinks that poetry and literature can
be persuasive in a non-argumentative way.  But no,
it can't substitute for argument when argument is
necessary.

> Habermas's doesn't disagree with
> this. He simply argues that instrumental actions are parasitic on
> communicative actions. 

In the sense that people have to be "socialized"
before they can actually LEARN what they
need to know to think through some "instrumental"
scenario?  Poorly educated kids tend to make bad
(easily caught) criminals.  Well educated kids,
with degrees from the Wharton School and full of
financial math -- now they have more potential. 
Just thinking randomly about my obsessions.

> One must understanding something with someone prior
> to being able to act with purposive intent. This, it seems to me, is
> correct. Carrol has a goal, and its pursing this goal for certain reasons,
> shock value, to educate, to amuse, to hystericize... whatever (ultimately,
> I don't know, and I won't know until Carrol explains the reasoning behind
> the action). This is a worthwhile project. But, in terms of theory, it says
> nothing. We can't use poetry to design landing gear - we need a combination
> of both communicative and instrumental actions to do this. 
> Poetry might
> insipire us, it might motivate us... it might even be a vital means of
> creative-expression. 

And music too.  Don't forget that the point of
music is to massage your feelings and help you
feel more alive.

> But it is meaningless unless people can understand it.
> Understanding it is a hermeneutic task... which... well... has something to
> do with reasoning...
> 
> ken

P.S. I can't help it if I am not a Habermas
expert, but the discussion at least made me go get
the book and read some of it.

Have to check off the list for a few days.


=============================================================
Peter Kosenko
Email: mailto:kosenko at netwood.net
URL: http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko
=============================================================
"Man is a rational animal.  He can think up a
reason for anything he wants to
believe."--Benjamin Franklin