The weaknesses of strong intersubjectivism: Habermas's conception of justice

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 281-305

  Cooke, Maeve ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

^b Department of German ^*  (Ireland)

Author keywords

Argumentation; Constructivism; Democratic legitimacy; Habermas; Intersubjectivism; Justice; Truth

Indexed keywords

EID: 17044433403     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885103002003003     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. Die Zeit (11 October 2001). Habermas was awarded the prize on 15 Oct.
2. J. Habermas (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, tr. T. Burger with the assistance of F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
3. (1st published as (1962) Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Darmstadt: Luchterhand.)
4. His most recent thoughts on biotechnology can be found in J. Habermas (2001) Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur: Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik? Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
5. Habermas uses the terms 'moral validity' and 'justice' synonymously.
6. M. Horkheimer and T.W. Adorno (1972) Dialectic of Enlightenment, tr. J. Cumming. New York: Continuum,
7. (1st published as (1944) Dialektik der Aufklärung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.)
8. T.W. Adorno (1997) Aesthetic Theory, tr. R. Hullot-Kentor. London: Athlone Press,
9. (1st published as (1970) Ästhetische Theorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
10. M. Horkheimer (1974) Eclipse of Reason. New York: Seabury Press.
11. J. Habermas (1984, 1987) The Theory of Communicative Action, vols 1 and 2, tr. T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press,
12. (1st published as (1981) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
13. J. Habermas (1990) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, tr. F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
14. (ist published as (1985) Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
15. Whereas his position with regard to moral autonomy seems clear-cut, Habermas's view of self-realization is harder to ascertain. He seems to shift between two positions, a stronger one that ties self-realization to an intersubjectively construed conception of ethical validity, and a weaker one that sees ethical validity as a purely subjective affair. For a critical discussion of the questions of autonomy and self-realization in Habermas's work, see M. Cooke (1992) 'Habermas, Autonomy and the Identity of the Self, Philosophy and Social Criticism 18(1/2): 270-91,
16. and (1994) 'Realizing the Post-Conventional Self, Philosophy and Social Criticism 20(3/4): 87-101.
17. See M. Cooke (1998) 'Questioning Autonomy: The Feminist Challenge and the Challenge for Feminism', in R. Kearney and M. Dooley (eds) Questioning Ethics, pp. 258-82. London and New York: Routledge.
18. (1999) 'Habermas, Feminism and the Question of Autonomy', in P. Dews (ed.) Habermas: A Critical Reader, pp. 178-210. Oxford: Blackwell.
19. D. Henrich (1999) 'What is Metaphysics - What is Modernity? Twelve Theses against Jürgen Habermas', tr. G. Finlayson and P. Dews, in Dews (n. 10), pp. 219-319.
20. See also P. Dews (2001) 'Naturalismus und Anti-Naturalismus bei Habermas', Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 49(6): 861-71.
21. See Cooke (1998 and 1999, in n. 10); also M. Cooke (1999) 'A Space of One's Own: Autonomy, Privacy, Liberty', Philosophy and Social Criticism 25(1): 23-53.
22. On the predominance of the volitional moment in civic autonomy, see J. Habermas (1996) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, tr. W. Rehg, pp. 152 and 157. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
23. (ist published as (1992) Eaktizität und Geltung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
24. Habermas sometimes characterizes moral autonomy as a purely cognitive concept, lacking any volitional dimension (see e.g. Habermas (n. 13), p. 155, where he refers to the 'purely cognitive validity claim' of moral norms). To deny a volitional moment to moral autonomy would be absurd, however, given that autonomy has always been understood to involve the exercise of human free will.
25. See M. Cooke (1994) Language and Reason: A Study of Habermas's Pragmatics, esp. chs 2 and 5. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
26. See J. Habermas (1992) Postmetaphysical Thinking, tr. W. M. Hohengarten. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
27. (ist published as (1988) Postmetaphysisches Denken, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
28. J. Habermas (1991) Texte und Kontexte, p. 127. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
29. This concern is evident in Rawls's distinction between a 'modus vivendi' and 'stability for the right reasons', J. Rawls (1995) 'Reply to Habermas', Journal of Philosophy 92(3): 132-80, 147.
30. See Cooke (1998, in n. 10), esp. pp. 272-82.
31. Cf. M. Cooke (2000) 'Between "Objectivism" and "Contextualism": The Normative Foundations of Social Philosophy', Critical Horizons 1(2): 193-227.
32. Habermas (1984, in n. 7), pp. 40-42. For a critical discussion of this distinction, see Cooke (n. 15), pp. 31-32.
33. In Cooke (1994, in n. 9), pp. 91-97, I argue that Habermas fails to distinguish between two senses in which ethical judgements can be regarded as context-specific; the first addresses the question of who recognizes the validity of the judgement and the second addresses the question of for whom the judgement is recognized to be valid. His failure to make this distinction means that he is forced to deny to ethically valid judgements - or to valid laws - the sense of unconditionality he attaches to moral norms and to true propositions. Arguably, however, valid ethical judgements and valid laws, too, have a connotation of unconditionality, despite their context-specificity in the second of the above senses.
34. For a discussion of religious validity claims see M. Cooke (2001) 'Critical Theory and Religion', in D.Z. Phillips and T. Tessin (eds) Philosophy of Religion in the 21st Century, pp. 211-43. London: Palgrave.
35. M. Cooke (2002) 'Die Stellung der Religion bei Jürgen Habermas', in K. Dethloff, L. Nagl and F. Wolfram (eds) Religion, Moderne, Postmoderne: Philosophisch-theologische Erkundungen, pp. 99-119. Düsseldorf: Parerga.
36. See my critical discussion of Habermas on this point in Cooke (n. 15), pp. 29-35. However, in recent years, Habermas has begun to acknowledge that the normative suppositions guiding argumentation vary from context to context (see e.g. his 'Richtigkeit versus Wahrheit: zum Sinn der Sollgeltung moralischer Urteile und Normen', in Habermas (1999) Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung, pp. 271-318, 302. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp).
37. J. Habermas (1973) 'Wahrheitstheorien', in H. Fahrenbach (ed.) Wirklichkeit und Reflexion. Pfüllingen: Neske.
38. Habermas compares his approach to moral validity with Rawls's constructivist one. See Habermas (n. 24), p. 301 and (n. 13), p. 156. In the latter text, there are two significant differences between the German original and the English translation. Whereas the German version reads: 'moral norms . . . are surely not just "discovered" but constructed at the same time' (my translation), the English reads: 'moral norms . . . are surely not just "discovered" but partly "constructed" at the same time'.
39. J. Rawls (1993) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, esp. lecture III.
40. Cf. J. Rawls (1980) 'Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory', Journal of Philosophy 77: 517-72.
41. M. Cooke (2000) 'Five Arguments for Deliberative Democracy', Political Studies 48(5): 947-69, 958.
42. Cf. S. Benhabib (1996) 'Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy', in S. Benhabib (ed.) Democracy and Difference, p. 76. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43. In Habermas (n. 24), p. 297, he writes that a rational consensus (achieved under ideal conditions) guarantees the rightness of moral judgements.
44. C. Lafont (2002) 'Realismus und Konstruktivismus in der kantianischen Moralphilosophie - das Beispiel der Diskursethik', Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 50(1): 39-52.
45. Wellmer makes a similar point in 'Ethics and Dialogue', in A. Wellmer (1991) The Persistence of Modernity, tr. D. Midgley, pp. 113-231, esp. pp. 160-68. Cambridge: Polity Press,
46. (1st published as (1986) Ethik und Dialog. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
47. Wellmer (n. 30), esp. pp. 168-82.
48. J. Habermas (1998) 'Richard Rorty's Pragmatic Turn', in M. Cooke (ed.) Habermas: On the Pragmatics of Communication, pp. 343-82, esp. pp. 365-66. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
49. Ibid. pp. 369-73. Habermas (n. 24), pp. 291-96. See also M. Cooke (2001) 'Habermas on Meaning and Truth', European Journal of Philosophy 9(1): 1-23, esp. pp. 9-15.
50. Habermas (n. 32), p. 367.
51. Ibid. pp. 364 and 370-72.
52. Ibid. pp. 370-72.
53. The following reading is an attempt to makes sense of some of the difficulties I elsewhere discerned in Habermas's 'Janus-faced' conception of truth; see Cooke (n. 33), pp. 9-15.
54. Cf. Habermas (n. 24), pp. 311-12.
55. Ibid. pp. 293-95.
56. See Cooke (n. 15), pp. 29-35.
57. See Cooke (n. 33), pp. 12-13.
58. Cf. M. Cooke (n. 28), esp. pp. 954-56.
59. Cf. M. Cooke (2002) 'Argumentation and Transformation', Argumentation 16(1): 79-108, esp. pp. 96-97.
60. See Cooke (2002, in n. 23), esp. pp. 114-19. Cf. also Cooke (n. 43).
61. Habermas consistently refuses to give up his constructivist account of moral validity. See Habermas (n. 32), p. 381, n. 55, and Habermas (n. 24), pp. 271-318.
62. Habermas (n. 24), pp. 307-10.
63. Lafont (n. 30), esp. pp. 44-45.
64. Habermas (n. 24), p. 300 (my emphasis, my translation).
65. Habermas sets out the basic elements of his theory of moral validity in J. Habermas (1990) 'Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification', in his Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, tr. C. Lenhardt and S. Shierry Weber, pp. 43-115. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
66. (1st published as (1983) Moralbewufstsein und kommunikatives Handeln. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
67. See also J. Habermas (1993) 'Remarks on Discourse Ethics', in Justification and Application, tr. C. Cronin, pp. 19-112. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
68. (ist published as (1991) Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)
69. Habermas (n. 24), p. 300.
70. Ibid. p. 301.
71. Wellmer (n. 30), pp. 197-98, makes a similar point in connection with moral validity.
72. Habermas himself uses the word 'assumption' (Unterstellung), though he gives a somewhat different account of its necessity: 'This supposition of an objective world that is independent of our descriptions fulfills a functional requirement of our processes of cooperation and communication. Without this supposition, everyday practices . . . would come apart at the seams'. Habermas (n. 32), p. 359.
73. Cf. Habermas (n. 32), p. 360.
74. See n. 13 above.
75. Habermas (n. 13), pp. 151-62. Habermas offers a summary of the differences between morality and law, pp. 451-52 and pp. 459-60.
76. Habermas (n. 13), pp. 106-11. Cf. also pp. 457-61.
77. '[The discourse] principle has, to begin with, the cognitive sense of filtering reasons and information, topics and contributions in such a way that the outcome of a discourse enjoys a presumption of rational acceptability; democratic procedure should ground the legitimacy of law': Habermas (n. 13), p. 151.
78. Ibid. pp. 164-67.
79. Ibid. p. 179.
80. In Habermas (n. 13), he consistently refers to the process of democratic deliberation as a process of both will-formation and opinion-formation. His point is particularly clear on p. 460.
81. For example, ibid. pp. 156 and 458-59.
82. For our present purposes we can leave aside the objection raised by Lafont and others that this conception is inherently unstable.
83. Ibid. pp. 151-62; cf. also pp. 451-52 and 459-60.
84. Ibid.
85. See Cooke (n. 28), pp. 952-54.
86. Instead, it takes on the function of an imaginative projection of a condition in which perfect knowledge would be available and perfect mutual understanding, perfect transparency and so on would have been achieved.
87. As a result of his failure to distinguish between two senses in which ethical judgements and laws can be context-specific (see n. 22), Habermas is unable to attach any sense of unconditionality to the validity of laws.
88. As in the case of truth and justice, the relation between the normative component of democratic legitimacy and argumentation moves in two directions. Thus, not only is the idea of genuinely generally acceptable laws and policies a guiding assumption of democratic argumentation; there is a (historically contingent) conceptual connection between democratic legitimacy and argumentation.
89. Cf. Cooke (n. 28), p. 967.
90. However, as in the case of moral norms and moral autonomy, it is counter-intuitive to make participation in argumentation a prerequisite for cognitive transformation.