On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
> You can't make this judgement (about whether or not autonomy, for instance,
> is universal or conventional) until you've already entered into a discourse
> with 'the other' - which can only take place under conditions of autonomy
> and solidarity and reasoning...
This is simply empirically incorrect. People make judgments everyday without these conditions. Autonomy, solidarity, and reasoning as you define it are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for human judgment. Look around.
> Which is another way of saying: moral judgements require universal
> participation. The only 'society' that could at all be deemed 'morally
> inferior' is one that is actively trying to destroy communicative relations
> of 'the other' (because this amounts to a self-defeating and closed logic).
So if a society does not meet your standards of communicative relations, it is in fact inferior. In what sense is this *not* blatant ethnocentrism?
> Habermas isn't claiming that universality exists in the middle of us,
> he's arguing that we possess the capacity to create it. There is a
> sense, in this, that Habermas is being eurocentric, but in order to
> disagree, you have to acknowledge the importance of reasoning giving,
> which makes him correct.
>
So no matter what anyone says or does--Habermas is correct. Isn't this a bit facile? I'm going to develop a theory that people speak because a little angel whispers the words in their ears. Look, every time people speak, I've got more evidence for the existence of these invisible angels. Next time Ken posts--see, I'm right! The angels exist!
Miles