>
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:13:05 -0500
>From: "Ken Hanly" <khanly at mb.sympatico.ca>
>Subject: Habermas on Abortion and Finnis's critique
Everything snipped.
Habermas's position, regarding the 'morality' or 'ethicality' of abortion is a rather clever one, although I don't think for the reasons that he gives. Basically, Habermas cops to the idea that the question of abortion is a question of power. Those who have the power will decide. It is a question that will always be debated, always open to contestation. In other words, the issue can best be examined in terms of hegemony, not rational discourse.
What is interesting to me is that his position is so objectionable. The abortion debate has largely been couched in terms of morality, but this is precisely how the anti-abortionists want it to be expressed, because it strengthens their case insofar as morality remains conceived at a conventional level. The irony is that the 'morality' of the anti-abortionists itself, as it is informed by a particular Christian hermeneutic, is non-generalizable, relying on the authority of a relatively private linguisticized sphere. Habermas surely sees this. By casing the debate in terms of ethics, Habermas is casting it as the anti-abortionists themselves see it (a debate about conventional norms), and yet this is also precisely the position that they object to: the realm of partial interests (since they are articulating what they consider to be a universal interest).By arguing that abortion is not a moral issue, Habermas is picking up on the veracity of the anti-abortionists position: it is not a moral issue *on their own terms* which is, in fact, an argument which de facto supports the legalization of abortion (the anti-abortionists have 'moralized' the issue which runs counter to their own conventionality). Ironically, should the anti-abortionists take the position that a religious tenet can be moral, it ceases to be religious, and that's probably more of a fright for religious adherents than the legalization of abortion [my thoughts here are only relevant to anti-abortionists who stake their claims in religious precepts and are therefore quite limited in that sense].
As for the cornerstone of the law being: no killing. I disagree. The conerstone of the law is sovereignty.
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:42:54 -0700
>From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at home.com>
>Subject: Re: Habermas on Abortion and Finnis's critique
>
>Why are we so cognitively and emotionally locked into calling abortion
>a moral dilemma at all?
>
>H. is making one hell of a lot of assumptions about language in that
>extract, as is Finnis.
>
>Wasn't one of the points of liberalism that we can choose to be free
>from using moral discourse in contexts we previously thought were
>ineliminably about morals and ethics?
>
>Ian
Exactly. That's a pretty niffty phrase: freedom entails being "free from moral discourse." In a way, that exactly correct. Freedom is a moral issue - it can only exist under conditions where certain formal relations remain in place. The substance of freedom is an ethical life, 'the good life.'
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:09:38 -0400
>From: Kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net>
>Subject: Re: Habermas on Abortion and Finnis's critique
>
>this is a problem. there is nothing in habermas's theory--that i
>recall--that suggests that the unborn wouldn't be included. ken m will know
>more since i'm not much of a habermasian and certainly not especially
>interested in philosophical ethics. at any rate, i think this is spin.
The unborn, in Habermas, are 'part of nature.' We can't have a discussion directly with nature, so only those who are living are included as discursive partners. Those who speak on behalf of nature, according to Habermas, are mystics or crypto-theologians. At best, we can include with a discourse ethic an 'ethic of sympathy.'
>thirdly, habermas draws on the work of sociologists and social
>psychologists who argue that part of our socialization is about the ability
>to take on the role of the other. we may not fully understand what their
>life is like, but we can try really hard. part of moral reasoning is having
>the ability to speak for those others when they can't speak for themselves
>for some reason. this seems sensible to me. part of learning how to be a
>scholar, for example, is learning to look at one's arguments from the
>perspective of a hostile critic. i can sure do that and so can most folks
>here, whether they actually acknowledge it or not.
This is the idea of reciprocity, but it only makes sense if reciprocity is reciprocal with a concrete other. Hypothetical others can only be imagined. A hypothetical position can be raised, but the arguments cannot be conceived of as having any 'third-person' weight unless the entire discursive community agrees that such hypothetical positions have merit. So the absent can be considered, but these are argument which, ultimately, must be treated in the first and second person.
>i'd have to say that someone is actually speaking for the potential human
>life
>otherwise called a fetus and someone can speak for, as marta and others do.
>
>in that sense, they are represented in the convo.
It has to do with the future of life for the participants, not for hypothetical participants. The author of any such position remains only one of the discursive participants, so responsibility is not lifted when people speak for others. I think I'm just emphasizing the flip side of your point.
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:37:18 -0400
>From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
>Subject: Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #4742
>
>CB: "that theoretical ___?? can guide..." His theory ?
>
>In other words, he is not promising us a rose garden ?
Nope. Theory is not a guarantee of intelligent or intelligible practice.
>Ok but what recommends his theory over the theory I already have ? I've
>got a pretty big theory already, one which has generated a lot of
>practice. Marxism and Frederick Douglassism is a theory for guiding
>practice. You know the whole rigamarole. Why would I drop
>Douglassism/Marxism and take up Habermas' theory ? ( I realize you may
>have addressed this in the long thread)
Well, if you think theory is a worldview, then there is no reason to think much about Habermas, enjoy your symptom! However, if theory has something to do with truth, and the critical of ideology, or the critique of false or sloppy science, then Habermas has a great deal to offer.
>CB: Yea, I was thinking that bombs are communicative action , but they
>communicate the wrong messages.
I wouldn't exactly say that bombs admit of consensus... so I'd discourage the idea that bombing is an action oriented by the attempt to reach an agreement - although it is a strategic action which seeks to encourage understanding: surrender and/or die.
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 12:36:32 -0500
>From: "Ken Hanly" <khanly at mb.sympatico.ca>
>Subject: Re: Habermas on Abortion and Finnis's critique
>Of course this is really a weird thing for Habermas to assume since he has
>just admitted that the conservative has an equally good arguments to
>liberals on these matters.
Actually, he's argued that this issue isn't open to agreement on the basis of good reasons. In other words, 'good' arguments can't be made, if by a good argument we mean 'the force of the better argument.' Good reasons can be given, not better reasons.
>Both Habermas and Finnis present arguments. Why don't you examine them and
>evaluate them critically. I mean any post on anything is going to make
>assumptions about language. If your position is that we ought no longer use
>moral discourse to talk about abortion give us an argument for that. I would
>like to see it.
>
>Cheers, Ken Hanly
Isn't this Habermas's position? Aborition can be the subject of moral debate, but on this level there does not seem to be any 'good reason' to expect consensus, therefore until new arguments are raised that can meet with universal assent, the issue is to be decided on the basis of power.
>Kell wrote:
>Habermas is more interested in the _foundations_ of rationality and
>discourse ethics in the minimal _conditions_ that even bring people to
>attempt to communicate with one another in the first place.
Exactly! This must be stressed, again and again. A discourse theory does not answer moral questions for us, a discourse theory only substantiates the necessary material conditions required for a moral conversation to take place. Habermas theorizes this in is essay on discourse ethics. The practical aspect of which is his legal text "Between Facts and Norms" which seeks to yank the abstraction of discourse ethics into a concrete society - the view from here so to speak.
ken