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Afterword

Communicative Ethics and Current Controversies 10

Practical Pllilosophy

Seyla Benhabib

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The essays in this volume present the first English collection on the p'rogram of a "comITIunic3r.ive'.' ~r "discourse" ,ethics and document the livel y controversy this Idea has led to III the last decade . Like the Explanation vs. Understanding contro­versy, the dispute concerning communicative ethics is informed both by the Anglo-American and Conllnental tradillons of thought and retiects a provocative ll1teraCllon between the two. Communicative eth ics, as formulated by Karl-Otto Apel and Jiirgen Habermas, has been inAuenced by the work of such nloral philosophers as Kurl lla ,er. Alan (,e\Vlnh, H. M. Hare, Marcus Singer, and Stephen Toul!l1ln on moral reasonmg and universali za bility in ethics.' Above all, however, It IS m Joh:1 Rawls 's T1(": O- Kalltiall cOllstructivislll and Lawrclltc Kohlbcrg s cognitive-dcvcloplllelllaimoralthcury that Apel alld Habermas have found the must kindred projects of moral philosophy 111

the Anglo-American world.' .. . . The central insight of commumcallve or discourse ethiCS

derives from modern theories 'if autonomy and of the SOCIal contract, as articulated by John Locke , .Iean Jacques Rousseau, and in particular by Immanuel Kant. Only those norms and normative institutional arrangements are valid, It IS c1allned, which individuals can or would freely consent to as a resultof engaging in certain argumentative practices .. Apel ~aintams that such argumentative practices can be descnbed as an Ideal community of COllllllunication" (dir iri('(1./{' K~}1mnu1.L1kal.101lSg(.~ lIItillsci/{/(i) , wh ile Hailerm;!s ca ll s Ihelll "pr;!cllcal cl1SCOlirses.

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Aflcrword

iloth agree, however, that such practices are the only plausible procedure in the light of which we can think of the Kantian principle o[ "universalizability" in ethics today. Instead of ask ­ing what an individual moral agent could or would will, without self-contradiction, to be a uni v':rsa l maxim [or all , one asks: ,,·,that norms or institution s would the members of an ideal or real communication community agree to as representing their common interests after engaging in a special kind of argumen­tation or conversation? The procedural model of an argumen­tative praxis replaces the silent thought-experiment enjoined by the Kantian universalizabilit)· test.

These essays appear at a point when the mood concerning neo-Kantian , procedural, and formalistic ethical theories on both sides of the ocean is probably best captured by the follow ­ing statement of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair Maclntyre:

This is not the first time that ethics has been fashionable. And history suggests that in those. periods when a social order becomes un easy and even alarmed about the weakening of its moral bonds and the poverty of its moral inheritance and turns for aid LO the m oral phi­losopher and theologian , it may nol find these disciplines fluu r i.c;i1 i!1 g in such a wa }' as to be able to make available the kind of Ill oral reRection and theory which the culture actually needs. indeed 011

occasion it ma y be that the ver), causes which have led to the impov­erishment of moral cxpericnce and the weakening of mor",] bond s ",j]] also thclllsel\'es hLlVC conlriLmlcd Lv I.he forlllaLioll of ~l kind ur moral theology and philosoph y which are unabl e LO provide the needed resoLlrces . .'1

If this statCIJlCllt ca ll ue viewed as a f~lirl )' accurate indi catioll of the Zeitgeist concerning ethical theor), toda y, as I be lieve is tbe case, then thi s certa inl ), does not bode well for ye t anoth er program of ethical uni versalism and formalism. Such ethical formalism is cunsidered a part of the Enlightenmelll project of rationalism and of the political project of libera li sm , and it is argued that precisel y these inte llectual and political legacies are an aspect, if not the main cause, of the contemporary crisis. If comm unicative or discourse eth ics is to be at all credible, therefore, it must be able to meet the kind of challenges posed by Macintyre and Hauerwas.

In this afterword I would like to acknowledge this challenge and anlicip;!te a set of objections alld criticisms which can be

332 Seyla Ben habib

pressed against communicative ethics from a standpoint which I will· roughl y describe as "neo-Aristotelian" and "neo-Hege­lian." Since Aristotle's criticism of Plato's theory of the good and of the ideal state in his Nic01nacheatl Ethics and Politics,' and since Hegel'S critique of Kantian ethics in his various writings,' formali st and universalist ethical theories have been conunu­ously challenged in the name of some concrete historical-ethical community or, in Hegelian language, of some SzuiIchlw ./ .. In fact, Apel and Habermas admit that one cannot Ignore the lessons of Hegel's critique of Kantian morality· Whether they have successfully integrated these lessons II1t o communIcati ve ethi cs, however, is worth examining more closely.

In recent discussions "neo-ArisLOtelianism" has been used to

refer to three, not always clearl y di stin guished , strands of social analysis and ph ilosophical argumentation. Panicularl y in the German context, this term has been identified .with a neocon­servative social diagn osis of the problems of late-capitalist so­cieties.' Such societies are viewed as suffering from a loss of moral and almost civilizational orientation, caused by excessive individualism , libertarianism , and the general temerity of lib­eralism when faced with the task of establishing fundamental va lues. Neither cap italist economic and societal modernization nor technologica l changes are seen as basic causes of the cur­rent crisis; instead pol itical liberalism and moral plurahsm are regarded as the chief causes of this situation. From R obert Spaema nn to Allan Bloom, thi s position has found vIgorous

exponents today. The term "nco-Aristo telian" is also frequently used to des­

ignate the position o f thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walze r, who lament the decline of moral and political commu ni ties in con tem pora ry societies.!'! U nlike the Ilcoconscr";Il,ivcs. th e "COlllmUnilarian" neo-Ari sLOtelians arc critical of cOlllempQrary ca pitalism and lechnology. The recovery of "community" need not on ly or even necessarily mean the recovery of some f undamentaizst value-scheme; rather, commu nities can be reconstituted by the reassertion of democratic control over the runaway megastruc­tures of modern capital alld technology. T he communita rians share with ncoconsc rv;zti"es the belief, however, that the for-

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333 Arterword

malist, ahistorica l, and indi vidualistic legacies of Enlightenmelll thinking have been historicall y implica ted in developments which have led to the decline o f community as a way of life. Panicularly today, they argue, this En lightenment legacy so constricts o ur imagination and impoverishes our moral vocab­ulary that we cannot even conceptualize solutions to the current crisis which wou ld transcend the "rights-entitiemelll-distribu­tive justice" trinity of politicalliberali slll .

Finall y, "neo-ArisLOtelianism" refers to a herllleneu tical philosoph ical ethics, centered around the Aristotelian under­stand ing of phTon.sis. Hans-Georg Gadamer was the first to turn to Aristotle's model of phro71.csis as a form of contextually embedded and situalionall y sensitive judgment of particulars'" Gadamer so powerfull y synthesized Aristotle's ethica l theory and Hegel's critique of Kant that after his work the two strands of argumentation became almost indistinguishable. From Ar­isto tl e's critique of Plato, Gadamer extricated the model of a situationall y sensitive · practical reason, alwa ys function ing against the background of the shared eth ical understand ing of a community."! From Hegel 's critique of Kant, Gadamer bor­rowed the insight that all formalism presupposes a context that it abstracts from and that there is no formal ethics which does not have some material presuppositions concern ing the self and social institutions, II Just as there can be no understa nding which is not situated in some historical contex t, so there can he no "moral standpoint" wh ich wo uld not he dependent "1'011 a shared ethos , be it that of the modern state. The Ka lltiall moral point of view is only intelligible in li g h t of the revolutions of modern ity and the establishment of freedom as a principle o f the modern world.

These three strands of a neoconservative social diagnosis, a politi cs of community, and a philosophica l ethics of a hi stori­ca ll y informed practical reason , form the co re elements of the col1lemporary neo-Aristotelian position . Here I shall be con­cerned with neo-A ristotelianism less as a social diagnosis or as a politica l philosophy but more as a philosophical eth ics.

Let me now formu late a series of objections to communica­ti ve ethics. Some version of these has been voicecl by thinkers inspired by Aristotle and Hegel against Kantian -typc ethical

334 Seyla Be nhabi b

theori es at some point or another. My goal will be to show that these o bjections ha ve not succeeded in deli ve ring a coujJ de grace '(a blow of mercy) to a dialogically reformulated univer­salist e thica l theo ry. A se rious exchan ge between such a UI1l­

versalist ethical theory, which su fTers neither from the methodological individualism nor from the ahistori cism of traditional Kanti an ethics, and a hermeneuticall y inspired neo­Aristotelianism can lead us to see that some traditional oppo­sitions and excl usions in moral philosophy are no longer con­vincing. Such oppositions as between universalism and histori city, an ethics of principle and judgment in context, or ethical cognition and moral motivation, within the confines of which much recent discussion has run, are no longer compel­ling. Just as it is not the case that there can be no historically informed ethi cal uni versalism , it is equall y not the case that all neo-Aristotel ianism must defend a conserva tive theory of com­munal ethics. He re I am concerned to indicate how such false oppositions can be transformed in to a more fruitful set of contentions between two types of ethical theorizing which have marked the Western philosophical tradition since its beginnings in Socrates's challenge to the Sophists and his condemnation to death by the city of Athens.

I Skepticism Toward the Principle of Universalizability, Is it at Best Inconsistent and at Worst Empty?

Hegel had criticized the Kantian f(lrImlia , "Act only on that maxim throu gh which you can at the sa Jlle time will that it should become a uni ve rsal la w," o n numerous occasions as being inconsistent at best and em pt y at worst." Hegel argued that the test alone whether or not a maxim could be univer­sa lized could not determine its mora,l rightness, As he pointed out in hi s ea rly essay on Natuml Law, whether or not I should return deposits entrusted to me is answered in the affi rmative by Kant with the argument that it would be self-contradictory to will that deposits should not ex ist. T he youn g Hegel answers that there is no contradiction in willing a situation in which deposits and propert), do not exist, unless of course we make some other assu mptions abou t human needs, scarce resources,

i 335 Afterword

distribu tive justice, and the like. Out of the pure form of the moral law alone, no concrete maxims of action can follow and if they do, it is because other unidentified premises have been sm uggled into the argument l 3

In view of this Hegelian critique, which continues to inAu­ence discussions of Kantian ethics even today, J< the response of Kantian moral theorists has been twofold : first, some have accepted Hege l's critique that the formal procedure of univ­ersa li zability can yield no determina te test o f the rightness of max ims; they admit that one must presuppose some minimally shared conception of human goods and desires as goals of action, and must test principles of action against this back­ground. T his line of response has weakened the Kantian dis­tinction between autonom y and hete ronomy by accepting that the goals of action may be dictated by contingent featu res of human na tu re rather than by the dicta tes of pu re practical reason alone. J ohn Rawls's list of "basic goods," which rational agents are supposed to' want whatever else they also want, is the best example of the introduction of material assumptions abo ut human desires into the universa lizability argument. The test of universalizability is not about whether we want these goods but rather about the moral principles guiding their even­tual distribution. " Other Kantian moral philosophers, and most notably among them, Onora O'Neill and Ala n Gewirth, have refused to jettison the pure Kanti an program, and have attempted to expand the principle o f the noncontradiction of maxims by looking more closely at the formal /t!atu.>·cs of rational a.ctiun. O'Neill , for example, distinguishes between "conceptual inconsistency" and "volitional inconsistency" in order to differ­enliate alTIong lypes of incoherence in aClion.l{; "The n on ­uni versali zed max im," she writes, "em bod ies a conceptual con­tradiction only if it aims at achieving mutually incompatible objectives and so cannot under any circumstances be acted o n with success."17 Volitional inconsislenc)" by co ntrasl, occurs when a rational agent violates what O'Neill names "Principles of Rational I ntending."" Applying universalizabili ty to maxims of action both to test their conceptual consistency and their volitional consistenc), avoids, according to O'Neill, "the dismal choice between tri viality and implausible rigorism,"IY In a sim-

336 Scyla Benhabib

ilar vein, Alan Gewirth expands an the idea af the "ratianal canditians a f actian" in such a wa y as to. generate nantrivial and intersubjectivcly binding maxims af maral actian from these'O

Bath strategies have prablems: in the first case, by allawing material presuppasitians abaut human nature and de~lres loto

the picture, one ru ns the risk of weakemng the dlsllnCllon between Kantian and other types of utilitarian or Anstotelian moral theori es. The result is a certain eclecticism in the struc­ture af the theary. The secand pasitian runs a different dan­ger: by facusing exclusively an the canditians af ratlanal intending or acting, as O'Nei ll and Gewirth do., one can lase sight af the questian af intersubjective.maral validity. After all, the Kantian principle af universali zablli ty IS farmulated 10 0.1'­

der to generate ma rally binding maxims af action which all can recognize. As Alasdair MacIntyre shows III hiS sharp cn­tique of Gewirth, fram the premise that I as a rallanal agent require certain conditions af actian to be fulfilled, 11 can never follaw that yau have an obligation nO! to hmder me from en­joying these conditions." The grounds far thiS obli gatlan are left unclear; but it was precise ly such graunds that the umv­ersalizabili ty requirement was intended to produce. Put 10

terms which are thase af Ape! and Habermas, the analYSIS af the rational structure of action far a single agent praduces an egologica.l moral theary which cannot justify intersubjective moral validity. Instcad of asking what I as a slOgle rallanal maral age nt can intend or wi ll to be." universal maxim for all without cantradiction, the cammunlca llve ethiCist asks: what principles of actian can we all recagnize or agree to as being va lid if we engage in practical discourse ar a mutual search far justificat ion?

With this reformulation, univcrs~lizability is defined as an intersubjective pracedure of argu mentatian , gear~d to attain communicative agreement. This reformulatian bnngs With H

several significant shifts: instead of th inking o.f universalizabll­ity as a test af nOll.contmdiction, we think of um versalizabllity as a test af communicative agreement. We do. nat search far what wau ld be nonself-contrad ictof)' but rather far what would be mutually acceptable for all. Furthermore, there is also a shift

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fram the madel of the goal-oriented or strategic action of a single agent intending a specifi c autcame to the madel of com­municative action which is speech and action to be shared with others.

What has been gained th rough thi s reformulatian such as to counter the Hegelian objection? Have we nat simply pushed the prablem from ane pracedure a nta another? Instead af deriving maral principles fram same pracedure af conceptual ar valitlanal coherence, do we not simply derive them now fram aur definitian of the conversa tianal situatian' Theorists can canstruct or design canversatians to yield certain outcomes: the precanditians af canversatian may guarantee that certain outcames will resul1. 22 In an earlier article I farmulated this prablem as fo llaws: either models of practical discourse ar the Idea l communicatian community are defi ned so. minimall y as to be tnvlalm the ir Implica tlans ar there are mare contraversial substantive premises guiding their design, and which do. nat belong amang the miniinal conditions defining the argumen­tallon sltuallon, III whICh case they are inconsistenl. 23 We are back to the "dismal cha ice" (O'Neill ) between tri viality o r IIlconslslency.

I naw believe that the way aut of this dilemma is to opt far a strong and pass lbly cantraversial canstructian of the conver­satianal model which wauld na netheless be able to avoid the charges af dagmatism andlor circularity." My thinking is as follaws: what Habermas has previously namcd the condi tions af an "i,dea l speech situation ," and which in the essay "Dis­course EthICS: Notes 011 a Program of Philosoph ica l Justifi ca­lIall" are call ed the "universal and necessa ry communicative presuppositions of argumenta tive speech,"" entail , in my ap in­lOn, strong eth ica l assumptions. They requ ire of us: ( I ) that we recognize the right of all beings capable of speech and action to. be parllClpallls 111 the maral canversatian-I will call this tlze princil)le of ullivenal moml respect; (2) these conditia ns further stipulate that within such.conversations each has the same symmetrica l ri ghts to variaus sp eech acts, to initiate new

. tapics , to ask for reflecti on abaut the presuppositians of the conversatlan , etc. Let me ca ll this the principle of egalitarian reciproCity. The very presuppasitians of the argumentatian sit-

338 Se)'la Bcnhabib

uation then have a normative content that precedes the moral argument itself. But can one then really avo id the charges of circu larity and dogmatism'

O ne of the central disagreements between Apel and Haber­mas concerns p recise ly this issue of the j ustification of the constraints of the moral conversation. A pel mamtalllS that:

If, on the o ne hand , a presu ppositio n can not be cha l.lc~lgcd in a.r­gumentation without actual perrorm~live selr-con lrad~cuon, and If, on the other hand , it Ollnot be dedllcll vely grou nded Without formal­logical pctitio principii , then it belongs 10 those transcendental-prag­matic presuppositio ns of argu mentation that o ne must ah~'ays. (al­ready) have accepted , if the language game of argumentallon IS to

be mcaningfu1. 2(,

'For Apel, the principle that all beings capable of speech and action are potential members of the same commun ICa tion com­munity with me, and that they deserve equal and sym metrical treatment are twO such conditions.

In view of this Apelian strategy of fundamental grounding or Letztbegrundung, Habermas a rgues that such a strong JustJ­lication of communicative ethics c"nnOl succeed and mal' not even be necessa ry. Rather than viewing the normative con­straints o f the ideal communication com muni ty as being "dis­closable" via an act of transcendental self-reA ection , Habermas argu es thal we view th e m as "universa l pragmatic presupposi­tions" of speech acts corresponding to th e know-how of com­petent "moral" agents at the postconventiona l stage. But as T homas McCarth y has pointed o ut the re IS no ulll vocal de­scription of the "know-how" of moral aCLOrs wh0

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the postconventional stage of mora l reasOl1ln g. ' Habermas s description of th is know-how is one among man y others lIke those of John Rawls and Lawrence Ko hl berg. At the stage of poslconventional nl0ra1 reasoning , reve l~s i~ili lY , unl ve rsahza­bility, and impartialit y, under some des~npl1on , are all aspects of the moral point of vie\\', but the rea l point of phIlosophICal contemion is the acceptable or adequatc description of these forma l constraints. The appeal to moral psychology and de­velopment brings no exe mption from the j ustifi ca tory process. Lawrence Kohlberg was wron g in thinkin g that the "ought"

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can be deduced from the "is." The formal structure of postcon­ventiona l moral reasoning all ows a number of substantive moral interpretations, and these imerpre tations always take place by presupposing a hermeneutic horizon .

As opposed to Ape!'s strategy of Letztbeg'rundung and Haber­mas's strategy of a "weak transcendental argument," based on the rational recons tructi on of competencies, I would like to plead for a "historica ll y self-conscious universalism." The prin­ciples of universa l respect and egali tarian reciprocity are our philosophical clarification of the constituents of th e moral point of view from within the normative hermeneutic horizon of modernity. These principles are neither the only allowable in­terpretation of the formal constituents of the competen cy of postconventional moral actors nor are they unequivocal tran­scendental presuppositions which every rational agent, upon deep. reAection , must concede to. T hese principles are arrived · at by a process of "reAective equilibrium" in Rawlsian terms, whereby one, as a philosopher, analyzes, refines, and judges culturall y de fin ed moral intuitions in light of articulated phi lo­sophica l principles. What one arri ves at the end of such a process of reAective equili brium is a "thi ck descriptio n" of the moral presuppos itions of the cu ltu ral hori zon of modernity.

At one level, of course , the intuiti ve idea behind universalistic ethics is ve r y ancient, and corresponds to the "Golden Rule" of the tradition-"Do unto others as you wou ld have others do unto you." Uni versalizability enjoins that we rcverse perspec­tives among members of a "moral commu nity"; it asks us LO judge fro m the other's point of view. Such reversibility is es­sential to the ties of reciprocity that bind human com munities together. All human communities deline some "significant oth­ers" in relation to which reversibi li ty and reciprocity must be exe rcised-be they members of m y kin group , my tribe, my cIty-state, my nation , my co.rel igion ists. What distinguishes "modern" from "premodern" versions of uni versalistic ethical theories is the assumption of the former that the mo ral com­munity is coex tensive with all beings capable of speech and action, and potentiall y with all of humanity. In this sense, com­municative ethics sets up a model of moral conversatio n among members of a modern ethical commu ni ty, for whom the theo-

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logical and onto logical basis of the inequality among humans . has been radicall y placed into question.

This is not an admission of dogmatism in favor o[ modernity, for even this "dogma" o[ modernity, if you wish, can be chal­lenged within the moral conversation itself. The racist, the sexist, or the bigot can challenge the principle of universal moral respect and ega li ta rian reciprocity within the moral con­versation, but if they want to establish that their position is right not simply because it is mighty, they must convince with argument that this is so. The presuppositions of the moral conversation can be challenged within the conversation itself, but if they are altogether suspended or violated then might, violence, coercion, and suppression follow. One thus avoids the charge of circularity: by allowing that the presuppositions of the moral conversation can be challenged within the conver­sation itself, they are placed within the purview of questioning. But insofar as they are pragmatic rules necessary to keep the moral conversatio n going, we can onl y bracket them in order to challenge them but we cannot suspend them altogether. The shoe is rea ll y on the other foot. It is up to the critic of such ega litarian universalism to show, with good grounds , why some individuals should be effectively excluded from the moral conversalion.

Of course, our moral and political world is more character­ized by struggles unto death among moral opponents than by a conversation among them. This admission reveals the frag­ili ty of the moral point of view in a world of power and vio­lence, but this is not an admission of irrelevance. Political ideologies as well as more subtle forms of cul tural hegemony have always sought to make plausible the continuation of vio­lence and power to those who most suffe red from their con­·seq uences. When such ideology and hegemon), no longer serve to justify such relations, then struggles unto death fo r moral recognition can follow. As a critical social theorist, the philos­opher is concerned with the unmasking of such mechanisms of continuing po litica l ideology and cultural hegemony; as a moral theorist, the philosopher, has one .central task: to clarify and just if), those normative standards in the light of which such social criti cism is exercised.2M

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34 I

Afterword

Let us return once more to the Hegelian objection : can a ulllversahst ethIcal theory, which views universalizability in eth­ICS as a moral :onver~,a tion governed by certa in procedural cons tralllts, aVOId the dIsmal choice" (O'Neill ) betwee t" r . . n nVI-a Ity or IIlconslstency? Hegel's critique assumes but does not clanfy a d lstlllcllon between universalizability as a procedure for tesllng and ul1lversalizability as a procedure for generating maxIms. As a proced ure for testing the intersubjective validity of moral pnnClples and norms of action , communicative ethics IS neIther tnvlal nor IIlconsistenl' as a proced ure r . I'd . . I . ' lor generatmg va I pnnclp es of aCllon, the mode l of moral conversation is a necessary but insufficient test case that requ ires, in any given IIlstance, adequate contextualization. In other words we can say of a course of action, the principle of which has p~ssed the te~t of conversa tional ulllversalizability, that it is morally per­mISSIble, but also assert that it wasthe wrong thing to do under the CIrcumstances., The uOlversahzabllity test should produce standards of what IS morally permissible and impermissible in genera l; however, such tests are by no means sufficient to establI sh what IS morall y meritorious in any given context.

Habermas formulates the test of universalizability thus:

... unless the consequences and side effects wh ich the general ob­s~r.vanc: of a con~roversial norm can be expected LO have for the sausfacuon of the mterests of each i,U/ividual can be {, I d b all 29 J ree:y accepte y

What we are asking is not whether from this procedure the moral theonst can deduce concrete moral pri nciples guiding aCllon. The adoption of "all contents," writes Habermas "no matter how fundamental the aClion norm involved ma;, be , must be made dependent on real discourses (or ad vocator), dIscourses conducted as substitutes for them .}"

Even If tillS principle.of unive rsali zabili ty is not in tended to generate concrete pnnClples or norms of action, can it serve as a test procedure for determining what is morall y permissible and ImpermIssIble? As a test procedure "U" e .. . nJ olll s us to en-gage 111 a counterfacLUal though t-experiment in which we enter IIlto conversati on WIth all who would be potentiall), affected by our actions. Let us consider some standard moral maxims to

342 Se)'la Benhabib

assess what has been gained by this reformulation. Take the example used by Kant, "deposits once made must be returned for otherwise there wou ld be no property." The relevant ques­tion is: does the principle "there ought to be property" satisfy the test that "the consequences and side effects wh ich the gen­eral observance of a controversial norm can be expected to

I have for the satisfaction of the interests of each individual be freely accepted by all?" The answer is that both the existence of properly relations and its opposite can be adopted as a coll ective maxim of thei r actions by moral actors, if the con­sequences of such arrangements for the satisfaction of the interests of each can be freely accepted by all. In other words, the existence or nonexistence of property relations cannot be determined via a moral deduction. Contrary to what Kant assumed, as long as they serve the satisfaction of the interests of each individual and this can be freely accepled by all, nu­merous forms of property arrangements are morally permis­sible. Kant was wrong in attempting to generate a categoncal imperative to uphold property relations; what is at stake is not property as such but other moral values like general welfare and the correct mode of dispensing of scarce resources. To this extent, the universalizability procedure in communicative ethics upholds Hegel'S critique of Kant.

Yet, as formulated by Habermas, "u" also leads to morall y disturbing and counterintuitive consequences. Take the maxim, "Do not inflict unnecessary suffering." Whether or not we are to inflict unnecessary sufl'c ring is to be determined by whether the cOllse4uences and side effects wh ich the general observance of a controversial norm can be expected to have for the satisfaction of the interests of each individual can be freely accepted by all. Can we imagine a situation in which it would be in the interests of each individual and free ly accepted by them that they would be not on ly perpetrators but receivers of unnecessary suffering? The answer to this question appears to depend on an equivocation concerning "interests." Suppose there are masochists and sadists among us who interpret their interests as consisting precisely in the opportunity to inflict and receive such suffering. Are we ready to say that under these conditions Nem;nclII laede ceases to be a morall y va lid principle?

343 Afterword

In other words, what appears to be the virtue of "U" in the property example, i.e ., its indeterminacy, is its weakness in the second case. But the least that a universalist ethical theory ought to do is to cover the same ground as what Kant had described as "negative duties," i.e., duties not to viola te the rights of humanity in oneself and in others. Yet "U" does not appear to do this.

I believe the difficulty is that Habermas has given "U" such a consequentialist formulation that hi s theory is now subject to the kinds of arguments that deontological rights theorists have always successfu lly brought against utilitarians. Without some stronger constra ints about how we are to in lerprel"U," we run the ris k of regressing behind the achievements of Kant 's moral philosophy. T he categorical imperative proves as morall y im­permissible what Kant names "negative duties": not to lie , not to harm, not to cheat, or otherwise violate the dignity of the human moral person. Positive moral duties cannot be d educed from the universalizability test a lone but require contextual moral judgment in their concretization.'o I have suggested above that the comm unicati ve ethics version of "U" must like­wise deliver criteria for distingui shing among the morall y per­missible and the morall y impermissible; nonetheless, this distinction alone does not yield adequate criteria of the morally right or virtuous or appropriate action under cuncrete circumstance.

Albrecht Wellmer, Agnes Heller, and Otfriec\ Hiiffe have all recelllly ex pressed stronger criticisms of' comlllunica tive ethics: evell as a test procedure for what is illlersubjectivc\ y permis­sible, "U," they argue, is either too indeterminate or too COI11-

plex or too counterfactual. In Heller 's sharp formulation: "Put bluntly, if we look to moral philosophy for gu idance in our anions here ~lncl now, we cannot obtain an}' positive g uidance from the Habermasian version of the categorical imperative. Rather, what we could get is a substantive limitation placed on our intellectual intuitions: we, as individuals, should only claim universal va lidity for those moral norms which we can assume would be accepted by everyone as valid in an ideal situ ation of symmetric reciprocity."" Albrecht Well mer writes: "If we in­terpret 'u' as an explication of ou r preunderstanding of moral

344 Se),la Ilenhabib

validity, then this means that in our mora l convictions and in OIH moral judgments, only such judgments must be involved that the consequences and side effects which the general ob­servance of a specific norm wou ld have for each indi vi dual could be Jreely (zwangslos) accepted by all . This, however, so it .appears to me, would make justified moral judgment a total chimera (ein Ding der Unmuglichlwit).""

Heller argues that the Habermasian theory cannot be saved for it is in effect a theory of "legitimation rather than one of va lidation."" Wellmer recommends tha t we interpret the ideals of "rational consent" or "agreement" as regulative principles, but that in the solution of Teal moral problems under real moral conditions, we can "only think of what the reasonable person or

. those competent judges or those affected by our actions would say if they we re suffic iently reasonable , good willing and com­petent in judgmerit."" I think Well mer's response weakens the distinction between justifI cation and contextualization . While I agree that such contextualization is absolutely crucial for moral judgment in real situations, I think his response makes the test of the validity of mora l judgment a matter of l,hronesll alone. I am interested in seeing whether there is anything at all, any guidelines, in the procedure of discourse ethics that could place a "suustanti ve limi ta tion on our intellectu al intuition," in the way of necessa ry but insufficient criteria. Heller considers the placing of such limi ta ti ons alone too minimal an achievement for moral theory. In my opinion, however, it would be quite sufficient for it universali st moral theory which is self-conscious aboul the historica l hori zon of modernity within which it is situated, if it succeeded in placing such a substantive limitation on our intuitions.

I want to suggest tha t "U" is actually redundant in Haber­mas's theoq' and that it adds liu.le bUI consequentiali st confu­sion to the basic premise of discourse ethi cs. "D" states that onl y those norms can cla im to be vali d that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all conce rned in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse. "D ," together with those rules of argument govern ing discourses, and the normative content of which I summarized as the principles of universal

345 Arterword

moral respect and egali tarian reciprocity, are in my view quite adequate to serve as the onl y uni versali zability test.

Th e chief difference between my proposal and Habermas's is that for him "U" has the effect of guaranteeing consensus. vVitho ut havin g their interests violated, all could freely consent to some moral content. But the di ffi cu lty with consent theories is as old as Roussea u's dictum-"On les forcera d'etre libre." Consent alo ne can never be a cri terio n of anything, neither of truth nor of moral validity; rather, it is alwa ys the rationality of the proced ure for attaining agreement which is of philo­sophical interest. We must interpret consen t not as an end-goal but as a process for the cooperative generation of truth or validity. The core intui tion behind modern universa lizability procedures is not that eve rybody could or would agree to the same set o f principles, but that these principles have been adopted as a resu lt of a procedu re, whether of moral reasoning or of public deba te, which we are ready to deem "reasonable and fair." It is not rhe result of the process of moral judgment alone that counts but the process for the a ttainment of such juugment which plays a ro le ill its validity and , I woulu say, moral worth. Consent is a mislead ing te rm fo r capturing the core idea behind communicative ethi cs: namely, the processual generatio n of reasonable agreem ent about mora l principles via an open-ended moral conversation. I t is my c,"im that this core intuition , toge ther with an interpretation of the normati ve con­straints of argument in light of the principles of universal respect and ega litarian reciprocit y, arc su ffi cient to accomplish what "U" was in tended to accompli sh , but onl y at the price of conseq uentialist confusion.

Let us return once more to the p r inciple, "Do not inflict unnecessary suffering" to tcst this claim. " According to my formula , we are to imagine whether if I and all those whose actions wou ld affect me and by whose ac ti ons I wo uld be af­fected were to engage in a moral conversation, governed b), the procedural constrain ts ofuniversal respect and egalita rian reciprocity, we could adopt this as a principle of action. By adopting the infliction of unnecessar y suffering as a norm of action , however, we would in effect be undermining the ve ry idea of a moral dia logue in the first place. But it would be

346

Seyl;, Ben habib

abs urd to want to adop t as ,·alid or correct a principle of action-the infliction of arbitrary suffering-such as would im­pair or jeopardize the very poss ibil ity of an ongoing conver­sation among us. Since such ongoing moral conversation involves sustainin g relations of uni versal respect and egal itar­ian reciprocity, if we all we re to engage in the inRiction of unnecessary suffering amo ng ourse lves we would undermine the very basis of our o ngoing moral relationship . In this sense, universalizability is no t onl y a fonnal j;rocedw·e but involves the utopian p rojectio n of a way of life as wel l.

Th ere is an interesting consequence here: when we shift the burden of the moral test in com municative eth ics from consen­sus to the idea of an ongoing moral conversation , we begin to

ask not what all would or could agree to as a result of practical discourses to be morall y permissible or impermissible, but what would be allowed and perhaps even necessary from the stand­point of continuing and sustaining the practice of the moral conversation among us. T he emphasis now is less· on ralional agreemenl, but more on sustaining those normative practices and moral relationships within which reasoned agreement as a wa)' of life can Aourish and continue.

2 The Right and the Good

Sympathetic criti cs of communicative ethics have persistently pointed o ut that this project formu lates more a model o f jJolil­icallegilimac)' than one of 1I/.ora.! va.lidil)'. To ask whether ce rtain nonnat ive institu tio nal a rrangements wuuld or cou ld be free ly adopted by all as bein g in thei r common interests , it is argued, is precisely to continue the central id ea of the modern natural ri ght and social contract traditions from Locke and Rousseau to Kan t. 3G Whi le many agree that such a principle of rational consen t is fundamental to the modern ideas of democratic legitimacy and justice, equall y many contest that it can serve as a moral procedure that would be reJe,·ant in guiding individual action and judgment.

I have argued above that on my interpretation, the basic principle of discourse ethics together with the normative con­stra illts of argullIcnt ;.niol1 (a ll serve a~ "substa ntive tests" of our

347

Afterword

moral intuitions. Furthermore, if we do not want to jettison the distinction between contextua.lizalion and justification in ethics altogethe r, we can sti ll preserve the model of a moral cOIl\'er­sation taking place under the cons tra ints of discourse as a limiting test for our intuitions of the morall y permissible and Im permiss ible. Clearly then whether discourse ethi cs is a model of legitimacy or one of moral va lidity will depe nd o n what IInplicatlons and usefulness we think this model has for g uiding IIldl vldual moral action and judg ment. Precisely because I thlllk tha t It can have such implica tions when inte rpreted properly, I also want to suggest that, at thi s stage of the debate , the critics' a rguments are not convincing.

Whereas some critics of discourse ethics want to rega rd it as a program of political legitimacy ra ther than as one of moral validi ty, others of a more n eo-Aristo telian persuasio n argue that no pnnClples of legmmacy can be formulated without presuppos ing some substanti ve theory of the good life . Quite III lill e With Hegel's critique of Kant, these contemporar y Ar­Istotehans and espeCIally com muni tarian critics of li be ralism maintain that the very idea of a minima.l-univenalist e thic, which would be supposedly "neutral" vis-a-vis the multiplicity of eth­Ica l life- forms, IS untenable . Charl es Taylor's objections to com­munica ti ve ethics have followed this line of argument" I want to name this the issue of the "right" vs. the "good." . From the outset, however, we must di stin guish between the

hbera l-communitarian version of this controversy on the one hand , and the controve rsy as it appli es to conllnunicative ethi cs on the o ther. The first controversy conce rns whether li beral principles of justice, as formulated by J ohn Ra wls and Ronald Dworkin in particular, a re "neutra l," in the. sense of allowing the coex istence of man y forms of life in th e polity, or whether these pnnclples both presuppose and privil ege a specific way o f hfe-Iet us sayan individualist one, cente red around the virtues of the rule of law a t the expense of solidarity, of privacy at the expense of communi ty, aI1d of justice at the expense of fn endship . While libera ls continu e to asp ire to such neutra lity, COllllll ullitan ans IIlSISt on the Illusory <jualIly of their search.'"

This debate between libera ls and com munita rians cannot be sim ply extended to com municative ethics, for the obvio ll s rea-

348 Scyltl llcnhabib

son that neither Apel nor Haber mas have developed a nor­malive theory of justice out of commu nicative eth ics, although communicative eth ics has definite institutional implications (see section 3 below). When app lied to comm unicative eth ics, the issue of the "right"' vs. the "good" conce rns nOt so much the aUeged neutrality or non-neutralit y of principles of j ustice, as it does the ve ry basis of the distinction between 'justice" and the "good life" within ethica l theo ry itself. .

Th e defense ofa deontologica l ou tl ook in Habermas·s theory takes a different form than what we encounter in Rawl's Theory oj j ustice'9 Whereas Rawls distinguishes between justice as the basic virtue of a social sys tem and the domain of moral theory at large in which a full theory of the good is at work,'o Haber­mas is comm itted to the stronger claim that after the tra nsition to modernity and the destruction of the teleological world view, moral theory in fact can only be deontological and must focus on questions of justice. Following Kohlberg, he insists that this is not merely a hi storica ll y contingent evolution, but that 'judg­ments of justice" do indeed constitute the hard core of all moral judgments. Habermas writes: "Such an ethic ... st.yli zes ques­tions of the good li fe , and of the good life together in to questions oj justice, in o rder to render practical questi ons accessible to

cognitive processin g by wa y of thi s abstracti on."" It is not that deontology describes a kind of mora l theor)" juxtaposed to a teleological o ne; for Habermas, deontologica l judgments about justice and rights claims defin e the mo ral domain insofar as wc can say anything cogn iti ve1y mea ningful about this.

H ow can we in fact defend the thesis that judgments of justice and right constitute the moral doma.ill? I can see two distinct arguments in Habermas's work on thi s issue. First, Habermas assumes that only judgments of justice possess a clearl y disce rni ble formal structure and th us can be studied along an evolu tionary model." J udgllJents conce rning the good life are amorphous and do not lend themselves to the same kind of formal stud )". But of cou rse t.his observation, far fro m juslifying th e restrin ion of th e l1Ioral domain LO matters of justice, could also lead to the concl usion that one needed to deve lop a less formalistic cthica l theo ry. This is a view which h<ls bccn successfull y defended by Bernard Wi lli ams in his

i I

I 349 Arterworcl

Ethics and the Limit.s oj Philosoph), and by Charles Taylor in various anicles.<i3

Second, Habermas mainta ins that the evolution of j udgments of justice is intimately tied to the evolu tion of se lf-other rel a­tions. Judgments of justice reAect various conceptions of self­other relations , which is to say, th at the formation of self­identity and moral j udgments concerning justice are intimatel y linked . This is because justice is the socia l virtue par excellence. 44

Again , however, it can be objected that the evolu tio n of self­other relatio ns must also be accom panied by the develo pm ent of self-u nderstandi ng and self-evaluation, and if j ustice is the sum of othcr-,·egm·ding virtues par excellence, this sti ll does not preclude the consideration of self-regarding virtues and their signifi cance for moral theory. If o ne understands Habermas's defense of deontological e thics as a claim concerning the ajJ- . 'JrojJri.ate object domain of moral theory, then I can see no plau­sible arguments in favor of such a restri ctive view of what moral theory can hope to accomplish.

I concur then with communitarian critics of d eontology like Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, and Michael Sandel onl y to the ex tent that viewing justice as the center of morality unne­cessaril y restricts the domain of moral theory, thus di sto rting the nature of our moral experiences. But a uni versalist and communicative model of ethics need not be so strong ly con­strued. Such a theo ry can be understood as d e fending a ··weak" deontology; th is means thal va lid moral norms mUSI be able 10

stand the test of discursi ve justification . S ince practical dis­courses do not theoreticall y predefine the domain of moral debate and since individuals do not have to abstract from their everyday attach ments and beliefs when lhey begin argumen­tati0l1 , however, we can accept that not o nl y matters of justice but those of the good life as well will become thematized in practical discourses. A model of communica ti ve ethics, which vi ews 1110ra l theory as a theory of argumenta ti on, need not restri ct itself to questions of justice. I see n o reason as to wh y qu esti ons of" the good life as well cannOI become subject matters of practical discourses. It ma ), very well be that di scourses will not yield conce ptions of the good life eq uall y acceptable to all;

350 Se)' la Benhabib

yet there is a di ffere nce between assuming a priori that ce rtain mallers a re q ues ti ons of the good lire and therefore inappro­priate matters of moral argument, and between assuming that a moral community will establish a line between individual conceptions of the good to be pursued freely and shared norms and values to be cul tivated co ll ectivel y. It is crucial that we view our conceptions o f the good life as matters about which inter­subjective debate is possible, even if intersubjective consensus, let alone legislation , in these areas remains undesirable. How­ever, onl y th rough such argumenta tive processes can we draw the line between issues of justice and of the good life in an epistemica lly plausible manner, while rendering our concep­tions of the good life accessible to mo ral renection and moral transformati o n.

Of course, thi s is a far weake r result than may be preferred by a strong teleologist like Alasd air Maclntyre bu t it remains for such a teleologist to show that under conditions of mod­ernity one can indeed formulate and defend a uni vocal con­ception of the human good . So far Habermas is r ight: under conditions of modernity and subsequent to the difrc rellliation of th e value sphe res of science, aesthetics, ju risp rudence, reli­gion , and morals we can no longe r formulate an overarching vision of the huma n good . Indeed , as Alasdair Maclntyre's definition of the good life, namel )" "the life spen t in seeking the good life for man"45 very well reveals. as moderns we have to li ve with va rie ti es of goodness. Whether the good life is to be fulfill ed as a n A fri can famin e relief fighter, a Warsaw ghetto resistant, a Mother T eresa, or a Rosa Luxemburg ethi ca l theory cannot prejudge; at the most mod ern moral theory provides us with some very general crite ria by which to assess our in­tuitions abou t the basic validi ty of cen ain cou rses of action and the integrity of certain kinds of \'~ Iu es. I regard neither the plura li ty a nd va ri ety o f goodness with which we have to live in a d isencha nted uni ve rse nor the loss of cen aint)' in moral theor ), to be a cause of distress. Under condi tions of value diffe rentiatio n we have to conce ive of reason no t in t.h e image of a homogeneous, transparent glass sphere into which we can fit a ll our cogniti ve and \'alue commi tments, bu t mo re as the

35 1 Afle rword

light shed by bits and pieces of di spersed crystals whose con­tours shine out from unde r th e rubble .

3 On the Distinction Between Justice, Morality, and Politics

The neo-Aristotelian and neo-Hegelian insistence on the cen­trality of a shared ethos or of a concrete Silllichkeil in the conceptualization and resolution of. moral qu estions, has un­avoidable implications in the domain of politica l action a s well. If this shared e thos and this Siulichkeil are viewed not primarily as the unavoidable hermeneutical horizon over and against which moral questions and problems can be formulated , but if they are considered the normati ve standa rd in light o f which to assess individ ual actions, then morality becomes su bordi­nated to the collective ethos of a community.

As the young Hegel wistfully wrote of the polis,

As freemen the Greeks ~nd Romans obeyed laws laid down by them­selves, obeyed men whom they had themselves appointed to offi ce, waged wars on which they had themselves decided , gave their prop­crt)', ex hausted the ir passions, and s;lcriflced their lives by tho usands fo r an end which was thei r own ... In public as in priv ~lLe and domestic life, every individual was a free man, one who li ved b), his own laws. The idea (Idee) of his country or of his state was the invisible and higher reality for which he strove, which impelled him to effort; it was the final end of his world or in his eyes the fina l end of the world, an end which he found manifested in the reali ties of his dail y life or which he himself cooperated in man ifesting and maim3ining.4fi

Undoubtedl y, this idealization of the Greek polis has to be viewed toda y more in light of German ro mantic attitudes to­ward Greek antiquity than judged as a historicall y accurate depiction of Greek society. As the matu re H egel himself rec­ognized , the ri ghts of subjective welfare and conscie nce are among the constituents of the mo ral freedom of the individual , and the individuals' pursuits of various conceptions of the good can never be wholly integra ted within a concrete ethical totality. The spli t of ethical life into the famil y, civil society, and the state under conditions of modernit y a lso means tha t pote ntiall y the dictates of individual conscience and welfare on the one

352 Seyla Benhabib

hand and the claims of institutions, li ke the fam il y, market, and the state , can a lways clash. In a famous passage o f the Philosophy of R ight Hegel defended the rights of Anabaptists and Quakers to refuse military service in the modern state on the g,-ounds that the sta te is strong enough to allow for dissenL without crumbling in the face of il." However, both in his theory of representative institutions and even more so in his reAections on war and world history, Hegel made the "self­preservation" of the universal the normative goal to which mo­rality had to be subordinated. Politics, understood as the sphere governed by the d ictates of the self-preservation and the wel­fare of collectivities , is juxtaposed by the mature Hegel to the "abstract cosmopoli tanism" and "universalism" of KanLian ethics.

In contemporary debates one can recognize th is Hegelian antecedenL in twO charges which are frequently leveled against communicative ethics: First, communicative ethics is said to lead to anti-institutionalist and fundamentally anarchistic con­sequences in political life'S; second, communicative ethics is said to be "mora listic" to the point of complete utopianism in the domain of politics. Imagine conducting a practical dis­course on malleI'S of international relations, state security, maybe even banking and fiscal policy under the constraints of an id eal speech situation! The strategic and instrumental re­lation of the parties to each other is so fundamentally consti­tutive of these macroinstitutions of political life that the kind of moralistic utopianism advocated by partisans of discourse ethics, so argues the political realist, wou ld on ly result in con­fus ion and insecurit y. In the domain of poli tics realism, en light­ened by an eth ics of responsibility, in the Weberian sense, is the best approach (see Herman Liibbe's essay in this volume) .

In the face of the charge of anti-institutionalism it must be said that the discourse ethics is not a theory of institutions, altho ugh it has institutional im plications. Whether we interpret them as principles of legitimacy or as principles of moral valid­ity neither uD" nor "U" can yield a concrete theory of institu­tions. but they have institutio nal implicaliuns . .<HI Institutionalist thinkers like Liibbe and Nik las Luhmann maintain that up­hold ing any concrete instillitions to the demands of such ra-

353 Afterword

tional consensus wou ld make life imposs ible. Within the constrai nts of institutions, decisio n proced ures, limited by space and time and scarce resources, must be respected. To hope for the rational consensus of all under these circum­stances would pa ralyze institutional life to the point of a breakdown .

This obj ection is justified, but it confuses levels: the discourse theory does not develop a positive model of functioning insti­tutions, which after all will always be subject to time-space constraints as well as to those of scarce resources and pe rson­nel. The di scourse theory develops a normative and critical criterion by which to judge existing institutional arrangements, insofar as these current arrangements suppress a "generaliza­ble interesl." T his appeal to the "suppressed generali zable in­terest" need not be read along Rousseauian lines.'o In complex societies, it is doubtful that there could be a definition and specifi catio n of the suppressed generalizable interest wh ich would meet with the consent of all. But one can use this cri­terion as a critical yardstick by which to uncover the under­representatio n, the exclusion and sil encing of certain kinds of inLerests. In other words, it is not so much the identifi cation of the "gene ral interest" which is at stake, as the uncovering of those partial interests which represent themselves as if they were general. The assumption is that institutions can fun ction as channels of illegitimate exclusion and silencing, and the task of a critical discourse theory is to develo p a moral presumption in favor of the radical democratization of such processes.

What institutionalists neglect is that power is not only a social resource to be distributed, say like bread or au tomobiles. It is also a sociocultural grid of interpretation and communication . Public dialogue is not external. to but constitu tive of power relatio ns : paraphrasing Nancy Fraser, there are officia ll y rec­ognized vocab ularies in which one can press claims; idioms for interpreting and communicating one's needs; established nar­rative conve ntions for constructing ind ividual and collective identities; pa radigms of argumentation accepted as authorita­tive in adjudicating conflicting claims; the repe rtory of avai lable rhetorical devices, and the like'l These constitute the "meta­politics of institutional dialogue," and as a critica l theorist, one

354 Sc}' la Benh;tbib

is interested in idelllifying those socia l relations, power struc­tures, and sociocultural grids of communication and interpre­tation at the prese nt wh ich limi t the identi ty of the panies to the dialogue, which se t the agenda for what is considered appropriate or inappropriate malter for institutiona l debate, and which sanctify the speech of some over those of others as being the language of the public.

Cenainly thi s is not the only point of view from which to understand and eva luate institu tions: justice, efficiency, stabil­ity, and predictability are also relevant criteria. To assume though that all discourses of legitimacy are counterproductive or anarch istic is to disguise political authoritarian ism as a post­Enlightenment critique of the Enlightenment.

In his essay, "Is the Ideal Communication Community a Utopia?," Karl Olto-Apel deals ex tensively wi th the question of the utopian cO lllent and implica tions of communicative eth­ics (in this volume). In his view, it would be utopian in the negative sense of extreme irrelevance to · demand that all in­stances of strategic action, whether individual or collective, be governed by the norms of communicative action, aimed at achieving mutual understanding and reciproci ty. Nonetheless, it is both a mora l and a political question to ask what the limits of individual and coll ective strategic action are, and to reflect on how to mediate between the requ irements of self- inte rest on the o ne hand and the moral principles of mutual and cooperative understand ing on the other. Once we restate the problem in thi s fashion, a whole r'lI1!(e of interesting con­siderations begin to emerge. The sta rk oppos ition between political utop ianism and poli tical realism is softened. Com­municative ethi cs anticipates nonviolent strategies of conflict resolution as we ll as encouragin g cooperative and associative methods of problem solvi ng. It is. a maller of politica l imagi­nation as well as coll ective fantasy to project institutions , prac­tices, and ways of life which promote nonviolent conflict resolution strategies and associative problem solving methods. Far from being u to pian in the sense o f being irrelevant, in a world of complete interdependence among peoples and na­ti ons, in which the alternatives are between nonviolent collab­oration alld !lucle;,r anl1ihilation. CO llllllllllicalivc elhics J1l ~ly

355 Arlcrword

suppl y our minds with just the r ight dose of fa ntasy such as to think beyo nd the old oppos itions of utopia or rea lism, contain­ment or conflict. Then, as toda y, we still can sa)" "L'imagination au pouvoir'"

4 On The Problem of Moral Motivation and Character

A major weakness of cognitive and procedural ist ethical theo­ries since Kant has been their reductionist treatment of the emotional and affective bases of m oral judgment and conduct. Twentieth-century neo-Kantian ethical theories have by and large rejected Kant's dual istic moral psychology, and his re­pressive treatment of sensuality and the emotions, all the "'h ile reta ining the distinction between "action done from the motive of duty" and "self-regard ing actions." Nevertheless, th is rejec­tion of the Kantian treatment of the emotional and affective basis of ethics has not meant paying renewed attention to these issues . In recent years, it has been philosophers like Amelie Rony, Martha Nussbaum , Annette Baier, and Law rence Blum on this side of the ocean and Ursu la Wolff in German y, as we ll as feminist moral theorists like Virginia H eld and Sara Rud­dick, who have developed a rich and significant body of work, analyzing moral emotions and moral character5 ' Does the ne­glect of these issues by advocates of communicative e thics so far point not just to a weak spot in the theory but maybe to a blind spot altogether?

I would like to suggest that vcr)' often ethi cal cogni tivislll has been confused with ethical ra tiona lism, and the neglect or the affective and emotive bases of ethics is a result of the narrow "rationalism" of most neo-Kantian theories. By "ethical cognitivism" J understand the view that ethical judgments and principles have a cogni tively anicu lable kernel, that they a re neither mere statements of preference nor mere statements of taste bUl that they imply validity claims. These claims can be stated as: "X is right," where by X is meant a principle o f action or a moral judgment, meaning "J can justif), to you with good grounds why one ought to respect, uphold , agree with X." In this sense, ethica l cogn itivism is oppo~ed to ethical dec i ~ ioni~m

that red uces Sti ch principles andj udglllcms to an "I will" which

356 Sc)'Ja Benhabib

cannot be further questioned. Eth ical cogl1lllvlsm is also op­posed to ethi cal emotivism that conAates statements like "Child molesting is wrong" with claims like "I like Haagen-Dasz ice cream."

By "ethical rationalism," by contrast, I mean a theoretical position which views momi judgments as the core of moral the­ory, and which neglects that the moral self is not a moral geometer but an embodied, finite, suffering, and emotive being. We are not born rational but we acquire rationality through contingent processes of sociali za tion and identity for­mation . Neo-Aristotelians as well as feminist theorists in recent years have argued that we are children before we are adults , and that as human child ren we can only survive and develop with in networks of dependence with others, and that these networks of dependence constitute the "moral bonds" that con­tinue to bind us even as moral adu lts. In Virginia Held's words, by ignoring the genealogy of the moral self and the develop­ment of the moral person out of a network of dependencies, universalist theorists often view the moral agent as the auton­omous, adu ll male head of household , transacting in the mar­ket place or in the polity with like others" Since Rousseau the demand has been to make ''I'homme'' whole .again, either by making him wholly a "Burgher" or by making him a "citoyen."

This "rationalist" bias of universa list theories in the Kantian tradition has at least two consequences: first, by ignoring or rather by abstracting away from the embedded , contingent, and fin ite aspects of human beings, these theories are blind to the variety and richness as well as signifIcance of emotional and moral development. These are viewed as processes pre­ceding the "genealogy" of the adult moral self; they seem to constitute the murky and shadowy background ou t of which the li ght of reason emerges.

Second, the neglect of the contingem beginnings of moral personality and character also leads to a distorted vision of ce rtain human re lationships and of their moml lexlw·e, precisely beGlllSe universalist and proccduralisl ethi caltheorisls confuse the moral ideal of autonomy with the vis ion of the self "as a mu shroom" (Hobbes).'" Far from bei ng a description of the "mora l pOilll of view," state of nature abstractions as well as

35i Aflerword

visions of the "original position" are projections of the ideal of moral autonomy which on ly reAect the experience of the male head of household . But let us proceed cautiously here: I am nol arguing that a truly universalist articulation of the moral point of view, one that includes the experiences of women and children, mothers and sisters, as well as brothers and fathers is not possible. The gender-blindness of much modern and contemporary universalist theory, in my opinion, does not com­promise moral universalism as such , it on ly shows the need to judge universalism against its own ideals and to force it to make clear its own unjustified assumptions.

Current constructions of the "moral point of view" so lopsid­edly privilege either the homo economicus or the homo /Joiilicus that they exclude all familial and other persona l relations of dependence from their purview. While to become an autono­mous· adu lt means asserting one's independence vis-a-vis thes~ relations, the process of moral maturation need not be viewed along the fi ctive model of the nineteenth-century boy who leaves home to become "a self-made man" out "yonder" in the wide, wi ld world . Moral auto nomy can also be understood as growth and change, sustained by a network of relationships. Modern and contemporary constructions of the moral point of view are like the distorting lens of a camera: if you focus too bad ly, the scene in front of you not on ly becomes murky but can lose contours altogether and become unrecognizable. Like­wise, the construction of those moral procedures which arc \0

act as "substantive limits on our intuitio ns" must not be so out of focus that by looking through them, we lose the moral contours and moral tex tures of such personal rela tionships. Moral vision is a moral virtue, and moral blindness implies not necessaril y an evil or unprincipled person, but one who cannot see the moral texture of the situation confronting him or her" Since the eighteenth century, eth ical rationalism has promoted a form of moral blindness with respect to the moral experience and claims of women , children , and other "nonautonomous others," as well as rough hand ling the moral texture of the personal and the familial.

Communicative ethics, in my view, is a form of ethical cog­nitivism which has so far been presented as a form of ethical

358 Scyla Bcnh;dJib

rationalism. Particularly the claim, discussed above , that judg­ments of justice constitute the hardcore of all moral theory is an instance of such rationalism. As 1 have argued above (see section 2), even from within the constraints of a discourse theory, this hard distinction between judgments of justice and those of the good li fe cannot be sustained. Neither can the privilegin g of mora l judgments to the neglect of moral emo­tions and character. There is a curious inconsistency here . The theory o f communicative competence develops a post-Enligh t­enment conception of reason and views reason as the contin­gent acquisition of beings capable of language and action to articulate and susta in intersubjective validity claims'· The the­ory of communica tive ethics, however, more often than not seems to perpetuate the Enlightenment illusions of the rational moral self as an isolated moral geometer.

If this is so how can I maintain, as I also did in the first part of this essay,' that the model of a universalist moral dialogue, envisaged ' in accordance with the formal constraints of dis­courses, can serve as a defensible version of the "moral point of vi ew"? My answer is that the less we view such discourses along the model of public fora or courts of appeal, and the more we understand them as the continuation of ordinary moral conversations in wh ich we seek to come to terms with and ap­preciate the others' point of view, the less do we submit to the distorting lens of procedural uni versalism. To argue that the counterfactual ideals of reciprocity, equali ty, and the "gentle force of reason" are implicit in the very structures of commu­nicative action, is to a rgue that the "moral point of view" artic­ulates more precisely those implicit structu res of speech and action within which human life unfolds. Each time we say to a child, "B ut what if other kids pushed you in to the sand, how would you feel then ?", and each lime we say to a mate, or to a relative, "But let me see if I understand your point correctly," we are engaging in moral conversatio ns of justi fi cation. And if I am correct that it is the process of such dialogue, conversa­tion, and mUlual understanding. and no l consensus which is our goal, discourse theory can represent the moral point of view without havin g to invoke the fiction of the homo economicus or h 01l/.0 fiolilic11..1. To know how to susLain an ongoing human

359 Aftcnvord

relationship means to know what it means to be an "1" and a "me," to know that I am an "oth er" to you and that likewise, you are an "I" to yourself but an "other" to me. Hegel had named this structu re that of "r eciprocal recognition." Com­municative actions are actions through which we sustain such human relationships and through which we practice the rev­ersibility of perspectives implicit in adu lt human relationships . T he development of this capacity for reversing perspectives and the development of the capacity to assume the moral point of view are intimately li nked. In the final analysis , universal­izability requires us lO practice the reversibility of standpoints by extending this lO the viewpoint of humanity. Such a capacity is essential to being a good partner in a moral conversation, and is itsel f furthered by the practice of moral conversation. In conversation , I must know ho w to listen, I must know how lO understand your point of view, I must learn to represent lO myself the world and the other as you see them. If I cannot listen, if I cannot understand, and if I cannot represent, the conversation slOpS, develops into an argument, or maybe never gets started . Discourse ethics projects such moral conversations , in which reciprocal recognition is exercised, onto a utopian community of humankind. But the abili ty and the willingness of individ uals to do so begins with the admonition of the parem to the child: "What if others threw sand in your face or pushed you into the pool, how would yo u feel then ?" .

5 Judging in Context vs. Principled Rigorism

The last issue I would like to treat in this afterword is the problem of phronesis or practical wisdom concerning particu­lars. ArislOtle saw this as the c rowning achievement of moral paideia and character. A common criticism of Kamian-type eth­ical theories is that they substitute an ethical rigorism of prin­ciples for the art of moraljudgment'7 Justifiable as this critique may be, the discussion concern ing moral judgment by either group of contenders in this debate has not advanced very far. The metaphor of the "archer hitting the .mark ," the language o f moral insight and blindness, still dominate many recent treatments of the issue. If we can register a certain impatience

360 Seybl Hcnhabib

with neo-Aristotelians in this respect, we must also admit that distinguishing between 'Justification" and "contextualization" cannot exempt the discourse theorists from analyzing what it is that we do when we supposedly contextualize moral princi­ples and how this .activity is related to the work of judging'· Obviously, there is a difference between the contextual appli­. ca tion of a cookbook recipe in the environment of our kitchens, given the ingredients and the utensi ls we have, and the so­ca lled "co11lcxtuali zation" of moral principles . If the discourse model is to succeed in acting as "a substantive limi t on our intuitions" of the morally permissible and impermissible as well as guiding us in our vision of the morally required , we must be able to suggest how the procedural model of the moral conversation developed so far is in volved in the process of moral judgment.

I wou ld like to suggest that if there are certain moral and cognitive sk ills involved in reaching perspicacious, appropriate, sensitive, and illuminating judgments that they may bear a "famil y resembla nce" to th e conversational skill s and virtues involved in the ongoing practice of moral dialogue and dis­course. T here is a cardina l requirement of contextual judg­ment, which most theorists, from Immanuel Kant to Hannah Arendt, who have developed the problem of judgment have suggested, and this is the abili ty, in Hannah Arendt's words, for "representative thinking":

T he power of judgment rests on a potential agreement with others, and the thinkin g process which is active in judgin g something is not, like the thought process of pure reasoni ll g . a dialogue between me and myse lf, uut fi nds itself alwa ys and prim<lril)r, even if I am quite alone in m;:lking lip my mind, in an anticipated communication with others with whom I know I must finally come to some agreement. From this potential agreement judgment derives its specific validity. This means, on the olle hand , that such judgment must liberate itself from the "subjective pri\'ate cond itions," that is, from the idiosyncra­cies which natural]\, determine the ou tlook of each indi vidual in his privacy and are lc'g ilim3te as long as the), are onl y privately held opinion s but which are 110l fit LO enter the market place, and lack all \'alidit), in the publ ic realm. And this enlarged way of thinking, which as judgmem kll ows how 10 transcend its individual limitat ions. cannot funCLion in strict isolation or soliLUde; it needs the presence of others

~6 1

Afterword

"in whose place" it must thillk, whose perspectives it must take inlO consideration, and without whom it never has th e opportunity to operate at all'9

In Kant 's discovery of the "enlarged mentality" in his theory of reRective judgment, Arendt saw a model for the kind of in­tersubjective validity wh ich judgments had to be submitted to in the public realm. J udgment involves the capacity to repre­sent to oneself the multiplicity of viewpoints , the variety of perspectives, the layers of meaning, etc., which constitute a situa tion. This represen ta tional capacity is crucial for the kind of sensitivity to particulars, which most agree is central for good and perspicacious judgment. The more we can identi fy the different viewpoints from which a situation can be inter­preted and construed, the more we will have sensitivity to the particularities of the perspectives involved . Put differently, judgment involves certain "interpretive" and "narrative" skills , which, in turn, entail the capacity for exercising an "enlarged mental ity." This "enlarged mentality" corresponds precisely to the reversibility of perspectives wh ich the d iscourse theory en­joins. The link then between a uni versalist model of moral conversation and the exercise of judgment is this capacity fo r reversing moral perspectives, or what Kant and Arendt name the "enlarged mentality." Let me suggest in more detail why the narrative and interpretive skills in volved in judging entail reversibili ty of moral perspectives.GO Moral judgment is crucial in at least three domains of mora l interaction : the assessment of one's duties; the assessment of one's specific cou rse of action as fulr.lling these duties ; and the assessment of olle's maxims as embodied , expressed , or revealed in actions.

In the assessment of duties, we are concerned with recog­nizing a particular situation as being one that calls for a specific kind of moral duty. How do we know that thi s human situation ca lls for the du ty of honesty, or the virtue of lo yalty or .of gcnerosity' What is it abou t a particular human situation that will allow us to identify it as being of a certain kind ? I wou ld li ke to suggest that here moral judgment is concern ed fi rst with the identifi ca tion of human situations and circumstances as being "morall y rele\'ant." By "morall y relevan t" I mean a sit-

362 Seyb] lk nhabib

uation or circumsta nce so defmed that it wou ld lead us to recogni ze a prima fac ie moral dUly LO act in a certain way. While it is precisely the mark of one who has good moral judgmen t that she id entifi es this as being a situation of loyalty, of generosity, of courage, or of integrity, whatever else such judgmen t takes, it most ce rtainl y must involve the capacity for represel1lative thinking or the reversibility of moral perspec­tives. O nl y one who is able imaginative ly LO represel1lto herself the va ri ety and meaning o f the human perspecti ves involved in a situation can also identi fy its moral relevance. For moral relevance in this com ex t means understand ing the moral de­scriptions and expectations and interpreta tions that make up the narrative fabric of a hu man story.

What about the assessment of one's acti on? Whereas in the case of assessing moral duty we as k, in what ways is this situa­tion morall y re1evam for me, now we are 'as king, "What is it that I m ust do to fu lfi ll my d u ty to act morall y once I have recognized it?" In o ther words, what· r do, which course of acti on I choose, in volves some inter preti ve abili ty to see my act under various act d escri p tions and to anti cipate how, while action A may be viewed as one of generosity, action B may be viewed as one of overbearing solicitude. I must have enough moral imagination to know the possible act descriptions or narratives in li ght o f which an act embodying a maxim can be conside red. Determining the iden tity of a moral action entails the exercise of moral imagination; this activates our capacity for imagini ng poss ible na rratives and descriptions in light of which our ,lCtions can be understood by others. Aga in , .such moral imagination involves representative thi nking, namely, the capacity to take the stand point of others involved into account and to reason from their poin t of vie\\'.

Finall y, let us look at the concn;tization of one's maxim, or principle of d uty, via a concrete action . There is often a clash between th e moral intentions or principles guiding an agent and the interpreta tion of thi s by the world, once they are embodied in actions. In formulating moral in tentions and max­ims-"I recogni ze that I must be generous now," "Honesty is always Illy I'0licy"-we project o urselves. our narrative history, into the wo rl d , and we want to be recogni zed as the doer of

363 Afrerword

such and such. We identi fy our moral in te ntions and p rinciples in te rms o f a narrative of which we ourselves are the author. T his narrative also anticipates the meaning that such p roj ection mayor will have in the eyes of others. Assessing one's moral intentions and maxims, therefor e, requi res understanding the narrati ve history o f the self who is the actor; this understanding exhibits both self-knowledge and knowledge of onesel f as vi ewed by others . The narrative capacity fo r proj ecting a course of action , which exhibits and embodies o ur moral intentions and max ims, requi res sensitivity to the many perspectives and in terpretations in light of which our na rrative and persona l story will be construed . This means once more that reversibility of perspectives or the capacity for re presentative thinking a re cem ral in such formulations.

What I have suggested so fa r is that if we view discourses as a procedural model of conversa tions in which we exercise rev­ersibili ty of perspectives either by actua ll y listening to' all in­volved or by representing to o urselves imaginatively the many pe rspectives of those involved , then this procedure is also an aspect of the skills of moral imagination and moral narrative which good judgment involves wha tever else it might involve .

do not therefore see a gulf between moral intuition guided by an ega litarian and universalist model of moral conversation and the exercise of contextua l judgmen t. Q ui te to the contrary, the kinds o f interpretive and na rrative skill s I di scussed above can also be easily used for "amo ral " purposes .

The exe rcise of good judg ment can also mea n manipula ting people-presumably good ad min istrators , poli ticians, thera­pists, social workers, and even teachers of yo ung children all exercise "good judgment," not always fo r the sake of moral reciprocity or with respect to enhancing the moral integrity of the one about whom such judgment is exe rcised . Moral judg­ment alone is not the totality of moral virtue. Here as well we need a "substanti ve limit" o n our intuitions: onl y judgment guided by the principles of uni versal moral respect and reci ­procity is "good" moral judgme nt, in the sense of be ing ethi­call y right. Judgments which are not limited by s uch p rinciples may be "brilliant," "right on the mark ," "perspicacious," bu t also immoral or amoral. Say ing this, however, is not to say that

364

Sc)'I" Uenhabib

in a fragmented universe of va lu e we arc never in the situation of juggling moral principles against other political, artistic, and administrative ends. Kamian theories have paid lillie allemion to this "fragmemation of value," and to the consequences which the fine LUning and balancing of our mora l commitmems with other value commitments have for the conduct of our li ves.

Here, we reach a frontier where moral theory flows into a larger theory of value, and I would say, into cu lture at large. Morality is a central domain in the universe of values which define cu i LUres, and it is cu ltures which supply the motivational pallerns and symbolic interpretations in light of which individ­ual s think of narrative histories, project their visions of the good li fe, il1lerpret their needs, and the like. Moral theory finds this material , so to speak, "given." T.hus, moral theory is limited on the one hand by the macroinstiLUtions of a polity, politics , administration, and the market, within the limits of which choices concerning justice are made. On the other hand, moral theory is limi ted by cu lture, its repertory of interpreta­tions of the good li fe, personality, and socialization patlerns. These two domains form the larger ethical context of which morality is always but an aspect. Yet the relation between mo­rality and this larger ethical context is not what neo-Aristote­lians and the young Hegel would like us to think it is. Under conditions of modernity, as the old Hegel knew, the moral poil1l of view always judges the instilUtions of which it is a part; and the modern individual exercises autonomy in distancing him o r herself from the given cultu ral interpretation of social roles , needs, and conccptions of t.he good life. III this sense the dispute between discourse theorists and neo-Aristotelians and neo-Hegelians is at its heart a dispute about modernity ; it is a dispute about whether modern moral theory since Kant has been an accompl ice in the process of disintegration of person­alit y and the fragmentation of val~e which is said to be our general condition today.· ' My intervention in this debate in­tended to show that, j udged from within the confines of moral theoq', and without delving il1lo this larger issue about mod­ern it y and its discontems, the debate between neo-Aristoteli­ans/neo- Hegelians and discourse theorists is still very much cominuing. Although it is too tritc to think that all philosoph-

365 Afterword

ical debates lead to good end in gs, my own personal sense at this stage is that this confrontation has invigorated rather than weakened contemporary moral theory.

Notes

J would like 10 thank my colleagues Ke nneth Baynes and Dick Howard fo r their illuminating criticisms of an earlier draft. A shoner vers ion of Ihis essay appeared in Tlu Philosophical ForI/in. special double issue on "Hermenelltics in Ethics and Social T heory," cd. by Michael Kell y. \'01 . 21. nos. 1-2 (Fall-Willler 1989-90), pp. 1-32.

1. See Kurt Baier, Till' Moral Poi111 of Vinn. abridged ed . (New York: Random Housc, 1965); Alan Gewirlh, Reason and Moralit), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1978); H. M. Hare, Fr'udom and RI'tL'iD11 (Oxford : Ox ford University Press. 1963 ); Ma rcus Singer, Gelll'roiiwbiiit)' in Ethics . An Ello)' in the Logic of Ethics with the Rudimrnu of a System of Moral PhiloJoph), (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1961 ); Stephen Toulmin, Tilt Piau of ReaJon i11 Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge U ni\lersit), Press, 1953),

2. SceJohn Rawls,A TJltory'ofJwtict, 2d printing (Cambridgc. MA : Han'ard Uni\lcrsity Prcss , 1972); John Rawls. "Kalllian ConstTlJctivism in Moral Philosophy: The Dewey Memorial LccLUres 1980," J ournal of Philosoph)'. 77 (Seplcmbcr 1980). pp. 515-572 ; Lawrence Kohlbcrg, EJ.Soyi on Moral Drodopmnlt, vol. I and TJu Psychology of Moral Droelopmt1lt, vol. 2 (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984) .

3. Alasdair Macint yre and SLan lc)' Haucrwas, Revisions (Notre Dame: Uni\lersity of Notre Damc Press, 1983). p. vii . For a general discussion of this COnlext, see also Fred Dallmayr's "Introduction," this volume.

4 . Ariswlle, in Tht Bruu Works of Aristotlt, cd . and trans. by Richard Mc Keon (New York : Random House, 1945).

5 . For Hegel's early critique of Kalll , see 'The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate," in G. W. F. Hegel , Earl)' Theological Wrilingl, T. M. Knox. trans. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1971 ), pp . 182-302; C. w. F. Hegel , Htgel'l Pht1IOmen%g)' of Spirit , trans. by A. V. Mill er (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1977). ch. 6 , scction C; Hrgrr.~ Phi/o.w/lll)' of R;~"t, Irtms. hy T. M. Knox (Oxford : Oxford Ullivcr~il)' Press. 197:\ ). 10, Additiull. pp. 3!IIT.; II cgel, Scirllrr a/uJgi,. /\' . V, Miller, 0 ':1115. (Ncw )'m·k: Ilum:lni lics J1ress, 1969) , pp. 133f('

6. Karl-OliO Allel . "Kant, Hegel und das aktueJle Problem der normativen Grundlagen von Moral und Recht," in DiJkurs ulld Vel'mlllJlorlUlIg (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp, 1988). pp. 69- 103: Apel, "Kann der postkantische Stal1dpunkl noch einmal in substantielle Sin­lichkeil aufgcllobt=n werden? . . " in ibid .. pr. 10:\-154:Jurgcn Habcrmas . "M oralital und Sitt lichkeit. Treffen Hegels Einwande.gegen Kant auch auf die Diskurselhik zu ?" in Aforoilliit uud Siu/i,hktil. Dru P l'OblnT! Hegtl.$ ul1d die Disli1mtlhik. ed . by W. Kuhlmann (Frankfurt : Suhl'kamp. 1986), pp. 16-38.

7. Herbert Schnadelbach. "Was ist NcoaristotelisnlUs?" in Moralittit und Sittlichktil , W. Kuhlmann . ed .. pp. 38-64 ; English trans. as "Whm is Nco-ArisIOlciianism ?" in Praxu lutemaliol/al, vol. 7, no. 3/4 (October-January 1987), pp . 225-238.

H. For an excellent su.-ve)' o f the \'(ll'ioll s stnmds of IIcn-A ristOlclian is lIl in cOlHcmpo­rar)' discuss ions. and in particllbr for thl' seriOliS dilTerences between German ;md

366 Sc)'la Bcnhabib

Anglophune nco·ArislOlciian tTench . sce Maurizio I'asscrin d'Enlrb'cs. "Aristotle or Burke? Some COTnlllents 011 H. Schnadclbach's '\Vha t is Nco-Aristotcliani sm?'," in Praxu 'nlf'nltll;rmal. \'01. 7 .. nos. 3/4 (DClobeT 1987-Januar), 1988). pp. 238-246. I discuss communi tarian ph ilosophies in "Auto nom y. Modcrnit), and Community. An Exchange BCl\veen Commu nitarianism and C ritical Social Theory," in Zwischt llbtt r(l(.h­IUlIgt" 1m Proll'S! da Aufkliinmg, ed. b)' A. Ho nnclh . T. A. McCanh)'. Claus arret and Albrecht Wctlmcr (F"3nkrun: Suhrkmap. 19S8). pp. 373-395.

9. H,3l1s-Ccorg Gadamcr. Truth alld Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975).

10. Gadamcr, "Hermeneutics as I' r;:lclica1 Philosoph y," in Rm.!on ;" Iht Agt oJ ScittllU, tram •. by Frederick G. Lawrence (Ca11lbridge, MA : The MIT Press, 1981). pp. 88-113. I ha ve not incl\lded Hannah Arelllh's work ul1der this GHegor iz<ltio n. because in matlers of moral as opposed (Q political philosoph)' Arendt remained a Kantian thinker. I deal with some aspects of this admittedly not ge nerall), shared interpretat ion of Hannah Arendt 's ",'ork in my "J udgment and the Moral Foundations of Politics in Hannah Arendt's Thought." in PoLitical Thttory', vol. 16, no. I (February 1988), pp. 29-53.

II . See Hans·Ceo rg Gadamer. "Hegel's Philosophy and il.!i Aftereffects until Today," and "The Heri tage of Hegel ," in RttQ.Jon in tht Agt of Sciuu:e, pp. 2 1-38 and 38-69; and Gadamer, Httgel'j Dialutic. trans. by P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press , 1976).

12. I. Kalil, Cnmdlttgtm g dt:r MttlaphyjVf tkr Sillen, trdll5. by H. J. Paton as Tlu Moral Law (London : Hutchinson, 1953), p . 421.

13. G. W. F. Il egcl, Nnt llml Law, trans. b)' T. M. Knox ,md illtroti . by H . B. Acton (Philadelphia : Uiliversilr of Pennsylvania Press . 1975), pp. 77-78.

14. For some "ecelll considerations on Hegel's critique of Kantian elhics, see Jonalhan Lear. "Moral Objectivity." in Objulivil)' and Cullumi Divt!rgt!nCt, ed. by S. C. Brown (Ca mbridge : Cambridge Unive rsity Press, 1984). pp. 153- 171.

15. The Kalltian principle or universaliz.abilit y does nOl, of course , dictate any specifiC conten t to th e principle~ of justice; rather, it is opera tive in the construction of lhe "original position ," as th e privileged moral vantage point rrom which to enter illlo dclil>crations about mailers of justice. See Rawls, A TJuory' of j,ulic~. passim.

16. O nora O·Neill. "Consislcl1c}, in Action ," in Mtlmfily ml(J Vlllllfnnlil)'. cd . hy Nclsnn T. !'olter and Mark Tillllllom (Dordl't'cht : U. Hcidcll'uhlish illg. IHH5 ). pp. 159- 186.

17 . It,;d .. p. IGR.

18. Ib;d .. p . 169.

19. Ib;d .

20. See Alall Ccwirt h. Rl'tJ.{oll (wd lI1 omlil.)' (C hicago : Universit), of Chicago Press, 1978). pp. '18-129.

21. Alasdair ~lacllHrrc . Aftrr V jrtur (Notrc D,11l1C: Univcnit}' or Not re Dame Press, 1984), p. 67.

22. Sec Michild W"lzcr, "i\ CI'ili<l ul' or PhiimopiliGl1 (;lIlIvcrs;l(ion." in Thr PhilosolJhical Forum . vol. xxi . nus. 1-2 (Fail-Willie I' IY89-90), lip . IR2- 197.

367 After ..... ord

23. S. Bcnhabib, "The Methodological Illusions of Modern Political Theory: The Case or Rawls and Habermas," in Ntut H t!fu fur Philosophit! , no. 21 (Spring 1982), pp. 4i-74.

24. 1 have develo ped lhis argument more extensively in "Liberal Dialogue \'s. A Discourse Theory of LegitimaC)'," in Libt:ralism and thtt Moral Lift! , cd. by Nanc), Rosen­blum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press , 1989) , pp. 143-157.

25. J. Habcrmas, "Diskursethik. Notizen zu cineOl Begrundungsprogramm." in 11101'­

albt!WusSlsttin und /tommunika. tivt!s Harukln (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 1983), pp. 96-97; Engl ish translation in this volume.

26. K.-O. Apcl , "The Problem of Philosophical Fund .. rn ental Ground ing in Light of a Transcendental Pragmatics or Language ," in K. Baynes, J. Bohman . and T. A. McCarth )'. cds. After Philojophy (Cambridge. MA : The MIT Press, 1987), p . 27i .

27. T. McCarthy, "Rationality and Relati vism. Ha bcrmas's Overcoming or Hermeneu­tics," in Thompson and Held , cds. Habt!TmO.S: Critical Dt!balti (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982), p. 74.

28. The meLastatus of such criticism-whether such social criticism needs to be philo­sophically grounded in some generally acceplable sys tem or norms or whether it can be exercised immanently. by internally appealing to, critiquing. or debunking thc no rms or ;l. given culture. community. and grou J>-is what sharply dividcs social theorists like Habermas ancl Michael Walzer. Given also the large area of substantive agreement among them upon the need for the radica l-democratic reconstruction of laI c-capita li st societies. it is worth pursuing what stalUs these meta philosophical dis­agreements-immanent or transcendental; relativist or univers;llisl-have. For Walzer, sec l uttrprttlatio'l aud Social Criticism (Cambridge, MA : Harvard, 1987).

29. In this volume, p. 90.

30. See Barbara Herman 's excellent discussion, "The Practice of Moral Judgment," in TJujounwl of Philosoph), (A ugust 1985). pp. 414-436.

31. Agnes Heller, "The Discourse Ethics of Habermas: Critique and Appraisal ," in Thuu £lLvnl , no. 10/ 11 (1984-B5), pp. 5-17, here p. 7; sec also Albrecht Wellmer. £ thik Imd Dialog. £It!mttnu drs moraliscJlffl UrteilJ bt!i Kmll Iwd ill dtr f)i.~kllrsfthik (Frank. rurt : Suhrbmp, 1986) : Otfried Hofre . " Kantian Skepticism Toward the Transcen­d emal Ethics of COllllllunicatioll," in this vlllulIlC.

32. Wdlmer, £thik uud Dialog, p. 63. My translation .

33. Heller, "The Discourse Eth ics of Ha?ermas," p. B.

34. Well mel', Elhik urn! Dialog, p. 64 .

35. Well mer also discusses th is principle in ibid., pp. 65fr. Wellmcr's argument is that sincc th e universal ad herence to this norm would climinale precisely lhose cases like the legilimate right to self·defense and junifi ed punish ment, the discourse ethics is obliging us to think of what is morall y right on I)' in relation to co unterfaclual ideal c011(lil ions and not real ones. Wcllmer concludes that the conditions of action suggested by "U" can properly be thought of as those appropriate for a "kingdom of ends." But the fact thaI in actual life we must a lwa ys make justified exceptions to su ch general moral rules ha!i litt le to do with the question whethcr our morallheor), is aule to justir y

368 Sc)'la Bcnh"hib

what \\'(' intuiti vel y kll Ow to u(' a r ight moral priucipl c. i.e ., ill this case nOI to inflict unnecessary sufferi n g.

36. See Wellmcr. ibid., pp. 121-122; Heller, "The Discourse Ethics of Habermas," p. 9.

3i. Charles Taylor. "Die Motive ciner Verfahrenselhik," in Moralilii/fwd Siuiic.hkl'il, W. Kuhlmann , cd .. pp. IOlrr.

38. See Mich;;tel Sandel , "Inlroduclion,"lo Uluralism and its Critic.;, MichaclJ . Sandel, ed. '(New York: New York Universi ty Press, 1984), pp. 1-13.

39. Part of the di!icussion which follows has appeared in S. Benhabib. "Autonomy. Modernity and Communit ), : An Exchange Between Communitaria nism and Critical Social Theor)'," pp. 377-79.

40.John Rawls , A Theo")' of jus/iu, pp. 398f['

41 . J. Habcrmas, "A Repl y to My Critic5," in Habmnas: Cdtical Debates. J. Thomp50n and D. Held , ed5 .. p. 24 6.

42. Haberma5, "Ego Development and Moral J denlit}',~ in Communication and the Evo­Iwion oj Society, tram. by T . McCarth y (Boslon: Beacon Pre5s. 1979). pp. 78ff.

43 . See Bernard Williams. Ethics 'muJ the Limit..! oj Philolophy (Cambridge. MA : Harvard University Press. 1985); Charles Taylor, Philruophy and tM Human Scimas. vol. 2 of Philolophical Papen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985) . pp. 23-247.

44 . Habcrmas, "Moralbcwusstscin und kommunikativcs Handcln," in MoralbcwlLutst in und lcommunikotivtJ HaudeJrl. PP' l44ff.

45. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p . 204.

46. Hegel , "The Positivity or the ChriStian Religion ," in Earl), Theological Writings, p. 154.

47. Hegel , Philosuphy oj Right, Note to para. 27.0. pp. 168-69.

48. See Robert Spaemann . "Die Utopie del' Herrschafts freiheit ," in Merkur, no . 292 (August 1972). pp. 735-752; Niklas Luhmann and J. Haocrmas, Theorie del' Geseloch4Jt oder Soziallcdlllologi f .Wa.I/fil/t'1 die S)'.demJoncluHlgr (Frankfurt : Su hl'kamp. 1976).

49 . For a provocat ive consideration of the implica tions or discourse theory ror a critical thcory of ne\\' social mo \'emcnts in Weslern and Soviet-type socie ties, see Andrew Arato and Je'lIl Cohen, Civil Socil!l.v alid Social ThlOry (Ca mbridge. MA : The MIT Press, forthcoming).

50. I havc de'llt with th t, dimcultie~ or the conctpt or the "suppressed generalizable intcrest" cXlcnsivcir in Crith/lit, Nonn and Ulopin (New r ork: C.olumbia University Press. 1986). pp. 3 1 orr. 51 . Nancy FI'aser, "'-O\\'ard a Discourse Ethic o f Solidarit y," Praxis J'lltnilltimlOl, \'01. 5. no. 4 (janu3t·,. 1986). p. 425 .

52. Sec Amclie ROflY, "ColT!,lIunit )' as the Context of Character," part four in Mind ~n Action. ESjo,rs ill tht Philosoph." of Mi,ui (Boston : Beacon Press, 1988), pp. 27 1-34 J; Martha Nussbaum, Till Fms.rilil.l' oj Good,u.u (Cambridge: Cambridge Un ive rsil ), Press,

369 Afterword

1986): Annette Baier, "What d o Women Want in Moral Theor),," NOILS , no. 19 (1985), pp. 53-63, and A. Baier, "J-Iume. The Women's Moral Theorist?" in Womttl and MoTtlI Thtor)', ed. by E. F. Killay and Diana T . Meyers (New Jerscy: Rowman and Littlefield, 1987), pp. 37-56; Lawrence Blum, Frie1id.ship, Allruism and Moralit), (London : Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1980); Ursula wolrr. DaJ Problem del moralu, hm Sol/rns (Berlin and New York: de GI'U}'ter, 1983); Virginia Held, " Feminism and Moral Theory," in Women (HId Moral Theory', E. F. Kina)' ami Diana T. Meyers. cds .; Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking (Boston : Beacon Press, 1989).

53. Virginia Held, "Feminism and Moral Theory," pp. 114ff.

54. I have di scus5cd the gender-bias or modern conceptions or autonomy in "The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohl bcrg-Gilligan Controversy and Moral T heory," in Women and Moral TheoT)', Killa), and Meyers. cds. , pp. 154-178; reprinted in Benhabib and Cornell, cds . Feminism aJ Crilique (Minnesota: Un iversity or Minnesota Press, 1987), pp. 77-96.

55. See Amclie Rort)'. "Vinues and th e Vicissitudes," in Mind in Action, pp. 3 14ff.

56. See. in particular, Herbert Seh nadelbaeh 's refiectiom in "Remarks About Ration­alit}' and Language." in this volume.

57. For a recent sta tement of the hermeneutic critique of eth ical theory fTom this point of view, see Ronald BeineI', "Do We Need a Philosoph ical EthicS? Theory, Prudence and the Primacy of Ethos?", The Philosophical Forum, vol. xx, no. 3 (Spring 1989), pp. 230fr. See also Alessandro Ferrara for an incisive probing or discourse ethics from this viewpoilll, "Universal isms: Procedunll, ContexLUalisl and Prudential," Philo.laph)' and Social Cdli,ism, vol. 14, nos . 3-4 , pp. 243-271.

58. See Habcrmas, "Mo ralbewusmein und kommunikatives Handeln," pp. 187ff., where the work of Norma Haan and Carol Gilligan is discussed ; Ape!. "Kann del' pos tkantische Standpunkt der Mo ralitiit noch einmal in substanticl1e Sittlichkeit auf­gehoben we rd en?", pp. 103ff.

59. Hannah Arendt, "The Crisis in Culture," in Belwttm Prut and Future. Six ExercutJ in Political Thought (New York: Meridian , 196 1), pp. 21-22.

60. For a more detailed presentation of the rollowing argument, see S. Benhabib, '~udglllelll and the Moral Found;lIions of Politics in Hannah Arendt 's Thought," J'olitirni TllfoT)'. vol. 16. 110. 1 (FcbruOl"), 1988). pp. ::l41T.

61. 1 have dealt with th e I)'pes of "es pol1ses 1O modernit ), among contemporary social theoristS in "A utonomy, Modernit~· and Communi t)'. An Exchange Between Com· munitarianism and Critical Social Theory."