Some Aspects of Moral Theory in Kant and Habermas

The Incompatibility of Categorical and Intersubjective Validity.

2005

Overview

This paper intends to examine some aspects of the moral reasoning of Immanuel

Kant and Jurgen Habermas. The main purpose of the paper is to examine the

framework of moral reasoning established by Kant and compare it with the more

modern treatment of moral deliberation as expressed by Habermas. The purpose of

the first section is to introduce my understanding of Kant and the foundations used to

ground the categorical imperative and claims of categorical validity so that in the

second section I may compare this framework with Habermas’ principle of

universalization and claims of intersubjective validity. Kant’s categorical imperative

serves as part of the framework for modern cognitivist ethics despite what I perceive

to be the incompatibility of categorical and intersubjective validity claims.

Both Kant and Habermas attempt to identify and justify moral principles and norms

within moral discourse by searching for “moral” standards used to evaluate or

legitimize moral determinations. Both authors focus on the rational recognition of

“unavoidable” or “necessary” moral propositions that flow from the reasoning of

abstract universalism. Kant is very absolute in his categorical standard used to justify

moral principles, while Habermas’ criteria is more subjective and depends on the

creation of a domination free consensus and other rules inherent to moral discourse.

This paper intends to examine the framework of moral reasoning supported by these

authors in order to explore the historical progression of moral reasoning from

monological to dialogical justifications. A review of Kant’s basic building blocks should

add a historical dimension to the paper and reveal the origins of part of the

framework used today to support discourse ethics and consensus based rules of

argumentation.

The thesis begins with a description of the conceptual framework used by Kant to

describe and justify moral propositions with a particular focus on the relationship

between categorical and unconditional validity and the concept of duty and moral

obligation. The second part of the paper will attempt to outline Habermas’ theory of

communicative action and discourse ethics that serves to establish the modern

linguistic and social framework for the justification of norms within an intersubjective

context. The second section intends to work toward attributing innovations, pointing

to contradictions, comparing descriptions, and mapping transformations between the

moral reasoning of Kant and Habermas. After establishing the basic framework for

moral reasoning, the last part of the paper will attempt to compare and contrast the

elements of categorical validity and intersubjective validity as espoused by Kant and

Habermas in order to suggest that Kant’s conception of unconditional categorical

validity is incompatible with Habermas’ conception of intersubjective discursive

justification. This section will try to canvas the terrain of moral reasoning in the

absence of categorical assertions and end with a few ideas on the topic of moral

worth that I suggest may serve as a further basis of inquiry in light of the conclusions

reached.

Introduction

Kant’s thinking established the basic framework for moral reasoning that is still used

by modern cognitivist philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas who investigate moral

claims of validity within a discursive context. Historically, moral norms and principles

were viewed as elements of a rational “order of things” imbued with teleological

2

2

value, or as part of an exemplary way of life leading to salvation. Immanuel Kant was

a fundamental influence in changing this perspective by bringing forward a reasoned

justification of morality. The skepticism of Kant to obtain certain knowledge of the

intelligible world, his rejection of religious dogma of the time, and the construction of

an impartial point of view formed a justification of morality founded on principles of

reason that were perceived by Kant to be objective without resorting to “faith” in a

divine creator. Kant’s categorical imperative is an expression of moral worth rooted

in egalitarian conceptions of reciprocity and equality - to treat human beings as ends

in themselves and never as means only. He seeks to identify moral principles on

grounds equally valid for everyone in an objective determination of a fictional realm

of ends. Habermas shares Kant’s goal of establishing the framework necessary to

justify moral obligations but differs as to the means to construct it. Habermas

grounds the justification of moral norms in the outcomes of a consensual discourse

that observe presuppositions of communicative action operating as pragmatic rules

of argumentation. He reformulates Kant’s moral system within a dialogical context.

Habermas’ transformation of Kant’s categorical imperative into the principle of

universalization serves as a key concept in the identification and justification of moral

propositions. Kant relies on the validity of an objective or absolute “fact” of reason

infallibly determined by the logic of unconditional demands. Habermas relies on a

mature consideration of the interests of all concerned within a process of public

argumentation. The transition from a unilateral monological justification of moral

principles to a dialogical consequential analysis constrained by discourse ethics

reflects a modern understanding that recognizes the need for participation and

agreement in the construction and validity of moral propositions. The principle of

universalization sets out to examine the potential for norms to be universally

accepted on the basis of an analysis of what constitutes acceptable consequences

from the perspective of each participant. The principle links moral validity to the

3

3

potential of a norm to be acceptable to everyone. This innovation links the validity of

norms to the assent of informed participants and requires rules of argumentation

that provide for unlimited participation, symmetrical rights of assertion, good faith

participation and domination-free argumentation within a public norm setting

discourse.

Cognitive ethics is rooted in the framework that Kant established for moral

philosophy. Habermas and other cognitive philosophers typically incorporate some

aspects of Kant’s reasoning that seem inconsistent with conceptions of

intersubjective validity. Both Kant and Habermas rely on reasoning that makes a

distinction between conditional and unconditional motives and hypothetical and

categorical validity. The use of unconditional motives and categorical validity was a

necessity for Kant’s conception of moral worth because he could find no alternative

grounding for “moral” action after he refused to admit the use of conditional interests

in universal reasoning. Habermas’ conception of intersubjective validity insists on the

mature consideration of the pragmatic interests and ethical value-orientations of all

concerned, a process that I argue is inconsistent with claims of unconditional

demands and categorical forms of validity as defined by Kant.

Within an intersubjective context, the claim to incorporate unconditional motives and

categorical validity is unnecessary and difficult to maintain, unless such claims

signify something less than what Kant intended. The categorical imperative

demonstrates a method of moral reasoning that relies on categorical assertions that

fail to disclose any reasoned justification for their acceptance beyond their capacity

for universal application without contradiction. Kant’s approach tried to avoid

hypothetical forms of reasoning tied to the conditional interests of deliberating

subjects in order to establish a category of moral propositions freed of instrumental

necessity. Although Kant attempted to avoid the use of conditional interests in moral

4

4

reasoning, I do not think he succeeds and the construction of moral reasoning within

such a framework is unobtainable. The reasoning of the categorical imperative does

not transcend conditional interests but rather merely rejects limited interests in

favour of universal “interests” allegedly shared by everyone. In other words, abstract

moral universalism attempts to prevent the use of selfish motives following from a

limited set of immediate conditional interests but it does not avoid the use of

conditional “interests” altogether. A better explanation of moral reasoning, as

provided by Habermas, would acknowledge conditional interests and focus on those

universally shared by everyone.

Kant’s use of categorical validity is insufficient to explain the best way to determine

which interests are universally valid. Kant claimed that everyone already knows what

is moral and he left this determination up to individual moral agents. Once this

assumption is questioned, moral propositions require a reasoned justification within a

pubic discourse. This process of justification inevitably attaches conditional interests

based on an empirical analysis of consequences to any proposition moral or

otherwise, whether shared by everyone or not. Even if one does not accept the idea

that the categorical imperative discloses the use of conditional interests, albeit

universal conditional interests, such claims are even stronger within an

intersubjective context. Unlike the categorical imperative, the principle of

universalization is rooted in the equal consideration of the conditional interests of

everyone. Moral norms accepted within an intersubjective context have little else to

explain acceptance other than a motivation linked to conditional interests. The

inevitable reliance on conditional interests to motivate consensus suggests that

Kant’s goal of unconditional validity is an illusion. Unconditional motives appear to be

credible in an abstract monological process because they remain unchallenged.

Within an intersubjective procedure the process of giving reasons cannot avoid the

5

5

disclosure of conditional interests rooted permanently in pragmatic and ethical

context.

Habermas recognizes that conditional interests are part and parcel of a transition to

intersubjective validity but he argues he can offset the problems created by such a

transition and retain claims of categorical validity for moral propositions by relying on

the constraints of a moral point of view that considers the interests and value-

orientations of everyone. Habermas proposes that an ideal role exchange that limits

itself to consideration of generalizable and universal interests can transcend

conditional motives in a context-independent manner. This line of reasoning is not

very persuasive and can be contrasted with the observation that the principle of

universalization itself discloses a standard of self-interest insofar as it is designed to

reject norms that contain unacceptable costs to all concerned. It does not appear

likely that models of normative rightness can transcend motivations linked to

conditional interests, at best it can equalize them or promote the interests of others.

If modern moral discourse requires reasoned justification of norms that are

inescapably attached to conditional motivations, then the only valuable conception of

moral worth to remain true to Kant’s basic insight is the idea of a person motivated

to protect the interests of others in the absence of any personal benefit. However,

this conception of moral worth is incompatible with the idea of limiting normative

rightness to norms that disclose common interests shared by everyone unless

arguably, everyone has a shared interest in altruistic behaviour that protects the

interests of others. All other categories of shared interests would disclose a

conditional interest. If this argument is acceptable then unconditional demands are

incompatible with an interest based analysis or they do not exist and moral reasoning

is left with the need to redefine moral worth as something other than “unconditional”

moral action.

6

6

Both Kant and Habermas claim to rely on categorical validity in order to avoid

hypothetical forms of reasoning that disclose instrumental reasoning. However,

discourse ethics ties the validity of substantive norms to rational conditions of

argumentation that take the form of unavoidable pragmatic presuppositions.

Habermas, like other supporters of cognitivist ethics, claims such rules are

unavoidable and necessary. I will attempt to argue that the procedural norms of

discourse ethics are the result of a dilemma of a choice rather than necessity and

that once this choice is made instrumental reasoning in moral deliberation is to be

embraced rather than avoided. The agreement to adopt communicative

presuppositions as rules of argumentation demonstrates the prior acceptance of a

general end, an agreement to cooperate within a domination-free discourse, albeit

for good reasons. Insofar as this is acknowledged, the procedural rules of discourse

ethics are derivative of hypothetical instrumental necessity. Based on this

observation, if the rules of argumentation are rooted in hypothetical reasoning, the

norms established within such a framework are somewhat limited by the constraints

of this initial determination. In other words, the agreement to adopt procedural

norms limits the scope of acceptable substantive norms to those that fit within the

hypothetical framework established by the prior acceptance of a general end, i.e.

norms that fall outside this framework are not likely to be accepted. Categorical

validity, whether grounded in objective laws or a potential for universal acceptance,

must give way to a conception of intersubjective validity that is rooted in the prior

acceptance of a general end, which is suggested by Habermas as the desire to

resolve conflict by the force of the better argument rather than with violence.

Part I: Some Aspects of the Moral Reasoning of Immanuel Kant

7

7

Introduction to Kant

Kant had four variations of the categorical imperative. His final formulation provides

that one should, “act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in

that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” The principles of

abstract universalism established by the categorical imperative heralded the first

theoretical advance toward the impartial consideration of the interests of everyone.

Kant focused on the conditions of moral action and a few particular maxims in his

description of the structure of moral propositions in the Foundations of the

Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant’s approach is to

describe the theoretical limits of practical reason while recognizing the superiority of

moral principles contained in notions of mutual respect and equality. Kant argued

that the will binds itself to the dictates of reason because it recognizes the

foundations of morality in the universal form. Moral agents observe what Kant called

“laws of freedom” because practical reason guides the will to universal principles

rooted in reciprocity and equality.

Kant intended his critical examination of practical reason to lay the foundation for the

supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative.1 The ground of obligation

represented in his moral law was to be constructed solely from a priori concepts free

from empirical explanations connected to the phenomenal world of

sense/appearance:

“…the ground of obligation here must not be sought in the nature of man or in the

circumstances in which he is placed, but sought a priori solely in the concepts of pure

reason, and that every other precept which rests on principles of mere experience,

even a precept which is in certain respects universal, so far as it leans in the least on

1 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969 pp.3-9.

8

8

empirical grounds (perhaps only in regard to the motive involved), may be called a

practical rule but never a moral law.”2

Properly called a metaphysics of morals his investigations were based on a critique of

practical reason that set out the limits of the “faculty of reason” and recognized a

system of a priori knowledge consisting of concepts described as objective moral

laws existing within an intelligible order of things purged of empirical interests or

sensuous motivations. A pure practical philosophy, as opposed to an applied practical

philosophy, was the difference between being motivated by a good will or empirical

conditions. Kant claimed that the universal form was devoid of empirical interests

and could be used to construct moral duties and ground moral obligations binding on

all rational beings as dictated by the faculty of reason. According to Kant, the good

will, confronted by freedom, commanded by reason, and motivated by duty agrees to

self-legislate universal laws out of respect for the worth of the unconditional moral

“ought.”

Theoretical Framework of Kant’s Moral Theory

Practical Reason

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that reason operates as a function of the

mind in the construction and use of principles within the faculty of understanding.

According to Kant, the faculty of understanding organizes experience through formal

relations or categories. The understanding serves to produce a unity among

phenomena according to rules of perception that are permanent and exhaustive and

corresponded to the categories of quantity, quality, relation, and modality or manner.

The “faculty of reason”, on the other hand, is considered to be more than an

2 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969 p.6.

9

9

experience of phenomena according to the four categories. Reason is capable of

constructing ideas and ideals of unity without corresponding objects in the

phenomenal world. In the words of Kant, reason produces a “unity among the rules of

understanding, according to principles.”3 The faculty of reason, can be distinguished

from the faculty of understanding and is composed of concepts that provide

knowledge based on principles not necessarily connected to the experience of

phenomena.

The term “principle” can be used to express at least two different meanings in the

works of Kant. Principles may be viewed as general propositions or maxims that can

prescribe a course of action for a particular situation. Prescriptive principles serve to

establish corresponding duties and our actions may be based on, conform with, or

breach moral principles or duties. The term “principle” may also, however, indicate a

descriptive function. A principle may describe an event and provide an explanation of

a thing’s working. When Kant explores the limits of practical reason he is attempting

to describe the principle of morality and explain how the moral law works as an

example of practical reason in action. When Kant is engaged in the construction of a

metaphysics of morals, he additionally sets out to provide prescriptive principles of

moral action. The distinction between prescriptive and descriptive moral principles is

important to keep in mind as Kant’s theory alternates between descriptive and

prescriptive modes of moral action.

Kant divided philosophy and the knowledge of principles into three categories: logic,

physics and ethics.4 Logic sets out formal rational knowledge concerned with the

form of understanding and the universal rules of thinking. Physics and ethics, on the

other hand, consist of material rational knowledge related to definite physical objects

3 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. F. Max Muller (Anchor Books, NY) 1966. pp.225.4 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.3.

10

10

and the laws to which they are subject, containing both empirical and rational

content. For Kant, philosophy is empirical if based on experience and pure if based on

a priori principles. The empirical portion of ethics is viewed as practical anthropology,

while the rational portion of ethics is conceived of as morality.5 Empirical judgments

differ from a priori judgments insofar as empirical judgments are descriptions of fact

based on experience. On a case by case basis, empirical judgments can be

generalized but remain limited to observations of what is, they cannot yield claims of

necessity or universality. A priori judgments, on the other hand, seek out necessary

connections rooted in concepts, the faculty of reason, or the faculty of

understanding. For Kant, to say that a triangle must have its interior angles equal to

two right angles or that every event must have a cause is to understand a necessary

connection between triangles and angles, cause and effect, not given by experience.

A priori judgments transcend knowledge based on empirical observation and contain

claims of necessity and universality in a manner precluded by empirical judgment. In

a sense, it is an idealized form of abstract thought.

The difference between theoretical and practical reason for Kant is the difference

between cognitions that express what “is” and cognitions that express what “ought”

to be. The theoretical use of reason deals with objects of cognition in the world of

appearance, while the practical use of reason is concerned with actions and grounds

that determine the will in the intelligible world.6 It is a distinction between two

different types of a priori judgments operating in human cognition. Scientific or

theoretical use of reason seeks to establish necessary and universal statements that

set out what “must” be the case, while the moral or practical use of reason seeks to

establish necessary and universal principles that set out what “ought” to be the case.

5 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969.see pp.3-4.6 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.15.

11

11

The a priori element of moral judgment is the condition of moral validity according to

Kant.

Instrumental reason is an example of practical reason that considers the necessity of

a relationship between cause and effect to produce an action or object. Kant’s

critique of practical reason is concerned with “the determining ground of the will”

either in bringing forth objects in the physical world corresponding to pre-existing

conceptions (instrumental action) or in the case of pure practical reason, acting on

moral principles of volition, or autonomous self-determination.7 Either way, practical

reason is a faculty that is used to guide people toward objects and the satisfaction of

needs through the application of principled action. Kant believed that the faculty of

reason served to satisfy our need to bring isolated judgments under general

principles corresponding to a uniform system of agreement or unity.

Laws of Nature and Laws of Freedom

Kant argues that, “everything in nature works according to laws.”8 He believed that

rational beings endowed with will have the capacity to act in accordance with laws

that are knowable a priori.9 Laws of nature are represented by the world of

appearance and are demonstrated by Newtonian mechanical principles while the

laws of freedom are represented by the intelligible world and consist of moral

principles. The laws of nature explain physical causality while the laws of freedom

explain the moral law according to which everything should or ought to happen, even

if it does not. Kant sees the world of sense appearance as a system of necessary

7 Ibid. p.15.8 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969.see p.33.9 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969.see pp.33-34.

12

12

mechanical laws to which the will is subject, while the intelligible world is free of

mechanical necessity but subject to the autonomy of the will.10

A human agent is considered rational insofar as they are conscious of the fact that

the faculty of reason may be used to harmonize activities with the laws of nature and

the laws of freedom. The capacity of the will to conform to a conception of certain

laws, i.e. according to principles, is a necessary condition of what it means to be

rational.11 In other words, a rational agent is a person who recognizes the laws and

acts accordingly. Kant believes that practical reason is demonstrable to the extent

that the will is in harmony with the fulfillment of a practical purpose according to the

laws dictated by reason. For example, the practical laws of geometry and

mathematics are taken to demonstrate the necessary aspect of objective rules that

reason understands a priori as fundamental laws, such as a triangle has three angles

or two plus two is four. According to Kant, this understanding necessarily determines

the will of an agent through the recognition of the unconditional form of the law prior

to its application to any particular subject matter.12 If one understands, a priori,

through the use of reason that two plus two is four, they are bound to obey this

unconditional universal law when counting apples or oranges or whatever. By

analogy in moral theory, a rational agent may act on the basis of unconditional laws

known a priori through the use of pure reason not determined by an object of the

senses.

Phenomena and Noumena

10 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.45.11 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. see pp. 34, 51.12 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.26.

13

13

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant makes a distinction between the world of

phenomena, which provides a perspective of an empirical self subject to the

necessary laws of physical causation, and the world of noumena, which provides a

perspective of an intelligible self that is situated outside the world of physical

appearance subject to the laws of pure practical reason. The clear separation of pure

practical philosophy within the intelligible world free from empirical inducements

serves to clarify the motivational force of reason, conscious of itself, in opposition to

maxims of action mixed with incentives based on feelings or inclinations. For Kant, it

is the motivation of a moral action that provides its distinctly “moral” quality.

In the world of phenomena, Kant claims that agents must recognize themselves as

subject to the mechanical laws of nature expressed by laws of physical causality. For

example, the laws of physics are said to be necessary and objective explanations of

causality dealing with objects and motion within a framework of mechanical

determinism wherein all causes can be attributed to a prior physical state. In

opposition to the world of appearance, Kant constructs the intelligible world of

noumena to ground an explanation of freedom of the will. The noumenal world must

be assumed, according to Kant, because we are conscious that our will is free to act

as a source of causation in opposition to the mechanical laws of nature within an

intelligible order of things. The problem that Kant articulates at the end of the

Foundations, that human beings do not have knowledge of and cannot really

understand what remains after excluding physical determinations, limits the

knowledge that agents may have about the intelligible world.

Kant claims that knowledge of the phenomenal world, or world of appearance, is

gained through a positive intuition of sensual phenomena, the use of our senses. He

claims that knowledge of the noumenal world or intelligible self is not known to us

through our direct intuition in a positive fashion, but rather dialectically in a negative

14

14

fashion. He claims that knowledge of the intelligible world signifies only a something

that remains when sensual causation as the determining ground of the will is

excluded. It is a negative thought of the world of sense or what remains when we

exclude empirical explanations of phenomena. Although the phenomenal and

noumenal worlds appear contradictory Kant recognizes that they must be thought of

as necessarily united in one and the same subject.13

Causality

The origins of the distinction between the world of appearance and the intelligible

world can be explained as the difference between two types of causality in Kant’s

thinking.14 The first type of causality is explained through the mechanical laws of

nature within the spatio-temporality of our experience where everything that takes

place presupposes a prior state and is explainable through a rule governed

connection to the laws of nature. The second type of causality is based on reason,

consciousness of freedom and a conception of rational logic that uses mental

representations to link concepts or events with necessary conclusions.

The first type of causality found within the world of appearance explains the

possibility of deducing necessary causes and effects in the phenomenal world. Kant

used the notion of the world of appearance as a theoretical vehicle to overcome the

skepticism of Hume who argued that mechanical cause and effect explanations were

merely linked by custom rather than necessity.15 Empiricism coupled with the

perspective of the world of appearance, was considered a method of obtaining

reliable knowledge of necessary laws or principles of causality relating to sense

13 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. see pp. 88, 86, 92, 198.14 Wolff, Robert Paul. The Autonomy of Reason. (Harper & Row NY) 1971. see pp.104-113.15 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.55.

15

15

phenomena that did not admit of any other kind of causality, i.e. logic or laws of

freedom. Empirical causality, for Kant, included internal sense perceptions and

desires caused by the world of appearance.

The second type of causality found in the thinking of Kant gives rise to his conception

of the world of noumena or things-in-themselves. It encompasses knowledge

achieved through concepts and the use of reason, rather than sensibility. Kant

constructs a notion of causality that is linked to practical reason modeled on the logic

used in establishing necessary connections between representations of premise and

conclusion, or subject and predicate. Modus ponens is an example of a hypothetical

model of reasoning that consists of “two judgments that are connected with each

other as ground and consequent,”16 in the form of “if p then q.” The consequent is

given as a condition of the ground. The validity of such reasoning relies on the

relation of the premise to the conclusion independent of whether the premise is true

or not. If the premise is true then the conclusion must also be true. For example, if all

bodies are composite then they are divisible. This proposition expresses a

problematic but a priori connection between the condition of being a composite body

and being divisible, a connection that is asserted to hold necessarily and independent

of empirical verification. Categorical judgments, on the other hand, express an

understanding of an essentially different logical function in the relation between a

premise and a conclusion, or in Kantian terms between a subject and a predicate. In

a categorical proposition the predicate is simply asserted of the subject directly or

immediately without conditions. For example, all bodies are divisible.

Kant also made a distinction between two different types of logical inferences,

between analytic and synthetic judgments. Analytical judgments assert an a priori

necessary connection between a premise and a conclusion where the given subject

16 Kant, Immanuel. Logic. Trans. Hartmann and Schwarz. (Dover Publications Inc., New York) 1974. p.111.

16

16

contains within it the predicate that is made explicit. The logical connection between

two propositions was provided by a relation of identity between the subject and the

predicate implicitly contained within the original subject not requiring any further

reference to knowledge gained from experience. This type of judgment was

contrasted with synthetic judgments in the Critique of Pure Reason, “Either the

predicate B belongs to the subject A, as something which is covertly contained in this

concept A; or B lies outside the concept A, although it does indeed stand in

connection with it.”17 Synthetic propositions require a “third” term to link the

predicate with the subject, a term that is not disclosed by the original subject.

Synthetic judgments may be empirical or a priori. In empirical synthetic judgments,

experience is the third term that connects the subject with the predicate. For

example, the concept of body is said to not include the predicate gravity, however

observations of experience may connect the predicate of gravity with the concept of

body in a synthetic judgment. A priori synthetic judgments pose a particular problem

for Kant because experience may not be the third term that connects a subject with a

predicate.

Kant undertakes a critique of practical reason to establish the possibility of a priori

synthetic practical propositions connected to noumena rather than phenomena. It is

this problem that occupies Kant in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and

the Critique of Practical Judgment. Although Kant restricts true knowledge to

knowledge of phenomena, he is forced to admit consciousness of noumena, which

cannot be known, but can be thought, as the source of a possible necessary and a

priori connection between synthetic practical propositions. Reason is deemed to be

the source of ideas in the form of noumena, such as conceptions of God, freedom,

and immortality, ideas for which no corresponding object or empirical proof can be

given. Kant is skeptical of gaining knowledge of causes beyond the phenomenal

17 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. F. Max Muller (Anchor Books, NY) 1966. p.7. A 6, B10.

17

17

world although he establishes the basis of a second type of causality rooted in action

that is “conscious” of freedom of the will. As rational beings we recognize we are

partly determined by sensuous conditions and subject to the laws of causality, while

in practical matters, as a being-in-itself, we are conscious of determining causality

through an intelligible order of things.18 Consciousness of freedom became the third

term used to connect the subject of a will with the predicate of an action in a priori

synthetic practical propositions, an idea that was not demonstrable by experience

but constructed by reason through the use of the concept of noumena. Kant uses

consciousness of freedom to explain how reason itself can be the cause of moral

actions. This type of causality is based on a notion of practical reason coupled with

the presupposition that the will is free to determine actions in conformity to

principles independent of the world of sense and the laws of physics.

Kant reasons that the concept of causality itself, used to explain physical cause and

effect, is capable of grounding an analogous theoretical causality grounded in the

intelligible world. Although he is careful to deny any capacity to gain knowledge of

causality as noumena, he admits that it can be used in a practical manner as a

concept or mental representation to explain causation within moral action. From the

perspective of things-in-themselves, the concept of an empirically unconditioned

causality coupled with consciousness of freedom of the will serves to ground an

explanation of causa noumenon. “Even though I have no intuition which would

determine its objective theoretical reality, it nevertheless has a real application

exhibited in concreto in dispositions or maxims; that is, its practical reality can be

pointed out. All this is sufficient to justify the concept even with respect to

noumena.”19 Kant claims that knowledge of causality rooted in reason and freedom of

the will is speculative and cannot be explained according to physical laws, nor

18 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.43.19 Ibid. p.58.

18

18

demonstrated by way of empirical methods. Freedom is considered a mere idea, “the

objective reality of which can in no way be shown according to natural laws or in any

possible experience.”20 When confronted with an unknowable intelligible world

purged of material incentives an agent must assume the validity of the idea of

noumena based on rational “faith.” In other words, reason is compelled to assume

transcendent concepts of the intelligible world because we are conscious of more

than physical laws, but what this more is cannot be comprehended by reason

because we cannot provide any material condition as a reason for its necessity.21

Kant is very skeptical of demonstrating the existence of objects within the intelligible

world and of our capacity to know of what they consist, maintaining that our lack of

knowledge is the supreme limit of moral inquiry. Despite Kant’s skepticism of our

capacity to know anything about the intelligible world he constructs his theory of the

moral law on the foundation of pure reason anyway. He suggests that the use of pure

practical reason (as concerns freedom) leads us to recognize the absolute necessity

of unconditional laws of action that are categorically valid and binding on every

rational agent.

Kant’s Moral Theory

“… nothing can secure us against the complete abandonment of our ideas of duty

and preserve in us a well-founded respect for its law except the clear conviction that,

even if there never were actions springing from such pure sources, our concern is not

whether this or that was done but that reason of itself and independently of all

appearances commands what ought to be done. Our concern is with actions of which

perhaps the world has never had an example, with actions whose feasibility might be

20 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. see p.89.21 Ibid. see pp. 93, 94.

19

19

seriously doubted by those who base everything on experience, and yet with actions

inexorably commanded by reason.”22

The justification of moral propositions in Kant’s moral theory is a matter of

determining the motivation or causes that determine the will to action. Kant’s moral

theory begins with the recognition that agents can understand the laws to which they

are subject from two different standpoints. The first standpoint is categorized under

the idea of heteronomy. Heteronomy explains the motivational force determining the

will governed by external impulse according to the dispositions of the individual

based on interests contingent on objects in the world. As such, according to Kant,

they are unfit to be apodictical practical moral commands.23 The second standpoint is

categorized under the idea of autonomy where an agent exists within an intelligible

world under laws grounded in the use of pure reason independent of sensuous

phenomena, although with the knowledge of still being subject to the laws of physical

causality. Kant’s moral theory is based on a particular construction of autonomy

where reason is viewed of as capable of determining the will free from foreign or

external causes,24 “The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and

of the duties conforming to them; heteronomy of choice, on the other hand, not only

does not establish any obligation but is opposed to the principle of obligation and to

the morality of the will.”25 The self-legislation of moral commands purged of material

incentives is therefore the basis of all moral laws and necessary duties. If the law is

not self-legislated then it implies some other interest or compulsion to obedience

rather than a will acting free from the determining causes of the world of sense.

22 Ibid .p.28.23 Ibid. p.72. 24 Ibid. p.73.25 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.33.

20

20

Kant insists that the fundamental principles of morality must originate entirely a

priori from the use of reason and not spring from the inclinations of men. He suggests

that if there are commands they are based on grounds that are universal for

everyone. Objective categorical commands are universal and valid for every rational

being. Although people are bound to act only in accordance with their own will,

subject to their own legislation, Kant claims that the will has been designed by nature

to use reason and legislate universal laws. If an agent acts in accordance with pure

reason they legislate in the universal form because they recognized and respect the

ultimate moral law contained in the categorical imperative. So even though the will is

self-legislated, it must recognize moral law to be moral and respect that qua law.26

For Kant the derivation of the moral law from pure reason unmixed with empirical

inducements distinguishes between conditional motives based on material incentives

or personal feelings, and unconditional motives that bind abstract principles of the

will to the intent of every rational being. Toward this end, he carefully distinguishes

between a will that acts from principles of reason, and a will that acts from an

interest motivated by inclinations. He defined the practical motivation of reason as a

cause determining the will represented by the idea of an interest. To be morally

good, the will and its actions must be based on the renunciation of all interests. The

categorical imperative describes the principle by which the will purges itself of all

interests. In Kant’s own words,

“Whatever is derived from the particular natural situation of man as such, or from

certain feelings and propensities, or even from a particular tendency of human

reason which might not hold necessarily for the will of every rational being (if such a

tendency is possible), can give a maxim valid for us but not a law; that is, it can give

a subjective principle by which we might act only if we have the propensity and

26 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. see. pp.50, 58.

21

21

inclination, but not an objective principle by which we would be directed to act even

if all our propensity, inclination, and natural tendency were opposed to it.”27

Good Will

It is by rejecting conditional interests that Kant forms the idea of an unconditional

good will. The good will is the foundation of morality for Kant because it strives to act

on the basis of maxims that accord with unconditional universal law independent of

materially conditioned maxims. A good will is considered the highest good and a

condition of every other good. The good will is be esteemed as good of itself without

regard to what it effects, accomplishes, or aims to achieve.28 It is judged as good

because the intention of the agent is free from material interests regardless of action

outcomes that may or may not be under the control of an agent. Kant claims that

morality and the categorical imperative are synthetic judgments that follow from an

analysis of the subject of an absolutely good will and the presupposition of freedom.

“Thus if freedom of the will is presupposed, morality together with its principle

follows from [an absolutely good will] by the mere analysis of its concept.”29

According to Kant, reason recognizes the good as practically necessary, not on

subjective grounds, but objectively on grounds valid for every rational being because

a good will acts from purely rational motives such as duty and respect for moral law.

An absolutely good will is one whose maxim can always include itself as a universal

law.30 It serves as a model for rational agents to follow, even though one may never

fully obtain the ideal condition.

27 Ibid. p.49.28 Ibid. p.15.29 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.74.30 Ibid. see. pp. 62-3, 74.

22

22

Kant is opposed to philosophers who would claim that the highest duty is self-love.

He is careful to make clear that his conception of duty is not derived from empirical

sources and rejects claims based on conditional interests because they cannot be

universalized. Kant believes that any volition dependent on the faculty of desire could

be explained by reference to the empirical conditions for its satisfaction or motivation

and therefore could not be the foundation for a necessary and universal rule. He

claims that practical rules that rest on subjective conditions are incapable of deriving

universal rules for rational beings and without exception they revolve around the

principle of one’s own happiness. For Kant, subjective ends possess only conditional

worth in relation to the desire or material incentive that grounds them. Kant argues

that rational beings want to be free of conditional and transitory ends because they

lack absolute worth, a quality possessed by objective ends. Objective ends hold

necessarily for all rational beings and they include only those ends that determine

the will of itself by the mere form of the universal rule.31 Objective principles that

constrain the will operate as commands in the form of imperatives.32 Kant argues

that the universal form of the imperative binds the will through the use of reason

insofar as an agent is rational and submits to universal moral laws. An absolutely

good will is said to operate free from the constraints of objective laws because it is

already subjectively aligned with an objective conception of the good.

Realm of Ends

A rational being with good will who self-legislates duties and obeys universal laws,

subject to no will other than his own, belongs to an imaginary community of rational

beings sharing the same standard of judgment, which Kant calls a realm of ends. The

realm of ends is merely possible by analogy with a realm of nature, which is

31 Ibid. p.52 and Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.19.32 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.34.

23

23

demonstrative in the absolute laws of physical necessity. Kant proposes to use a

“realm of nature” as a practical idea for “bringing about that which is not actually

real but which can become real through our conduct.”33 He is careful to distinguish

this idea from a teleological position that claims reality for a theoretical proposition,

i.e. the kingdom of god. Each person who binds their will to reason is said to belong

to a potential or fictional realm of ends insofar as they have subordinated their will to

a universal objective perspective.34

According to Kant, if there is to be a supreme practical principle and a categorical

imperative for the will it must be in the form of an objective principle that is

necessarily an end for everyone because it is and end-in-itself. Only an objective

principle can be a universal practical law. Kant reasons that every rational agent

thinks of their own existence as an end-in-itself and not merely as a means to be

arbitrarily used by another person. Because rational nature exists as an end-in-itself,

such a proposition may serve as the ground of a supreme objective principle capable

of deriving all other laws of the pure will. The law takes the form of the categorical

imperative : “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of

another, always as an end and never as a means only.”35

Kant proposes this principle as the supreme limiting condition on freedom of action

for each person. In other words, beings who are ends-in-themselves are to be

respected and our actions toward others are to be limited by this respect. If agents

want to consider themselves as rational they must share in the kingdom of ends and

treat each other as rational beings who recognize the existence of rational agency as

an end-in-itself.36 In this manner Kant suggests that rational beings are not to be

acted upon as if they are subjective ends of another person because they recognize

33 Ibid. p.62 FN#17. 34 Ibid. see pp.59, 62 F.N.#17, 65-66.35 Ibid. see pp.52-54.36 Ibid. p.55.

24

24

and respect actions that are objectively necessary. Therefore, all maxims of action

should consider the self and others as rational ends in themselves and should meet

the condition of being universally valid for every rational being.37 To treat rational

nature as an end-in-itself is to respect the idea of the dignity of humanity, as dictated

by reason, separated from material advantage of the legislator. A rational agent is

viewed by others as possessing moral worth to the degree that such an idea serves

as the absolute and inflexible guide for the agent’s will.38

Categorical Imperative

“…if I think of a categorical imperative, I know immediately what it contains. For

since the imperative contains besides the law only the necessity that the maxim

should accord with this law, while the law contains no condition to which it is

restricted, there is nothing remaining in it except the universality of law as such to

which the maxim of the action should conform; and in effect this conformity alone is

represented as necessary by the imperative.”39

The categorical imperative is grounded in the difference between subjective maxims

derived in reference to material conditions and the idea of conformity to an objective

moral law valid for everyone. According to Kant the categorical imperative excludes

reference to the material of the action and its intended result in an unconditional

manner. It is a law concerned with the form of universality and the principle of

autonomy purged of sensuous conditions. The categorical imperative to “act only

according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should

become a universal law” is seen as an objective unconditional law that is good-in-

itself and aims at no further ends. In general it is a formula for an impartial

37 Ibid. p.64.38 Ibid. p.65.39 Ibid. p.44.

25

25

perspective used to guide our will in the exercise of rational autonomy. It is what

every rational actor “ought” to do. Because moral maxims are to be equally valid for

everyone, moral propositions are not to confer an advantage or disadvantage on any

particular group. The categorical imperative precludes any opportunity for a rational

agent to make an exception to favour themselves or their friends.

The resulting practical maxims of action are grounded in the use of the rule (law) and

the form of being universal.40 The test of a maxim is whether it could enter into a

possible universal legislation without contradiction. In this way a person considering

the acceptability of a course of action would look at the implications of everyone

acting under such a principle and determine whether they would find such a rule of

conduct acceptable and free of logical contradictions. In order to will that a maxim

should become a universal law, both the maxim and the will must remain free from

contradiction. Potential universal laws of action are to be tested by agents for any

contradictions because a universal law may not, by definition, conflict with itself. In

other words, agents test maxims relying on the universal form eliminating candidates

on the basis of contradiction in order to create a set of duties that conform to the

supreme principle.41 Practical actions are considered worthy in relation to the

exercise of autonomy that respects and submits itself to the categorical imperative.

Morality is therefore viewed as a relation between actions and the exercise of

autonomy in conformity with universal law or duty.42

Duty

Based on the idea that the pure practical reason of every person recognizes the

moral character of the categorical imperative, Kant constructs three propositions that

40 Ibid. p.55.41 Ibid. see p.48, 63.42 Ibid. p.66.

26

26

explain duty to ground his conception of morality. The first proposition is that to have

moral worth an action must be done from duty. Duty is a practical unconditional

necessity of action that serves to constrain our will in opposition to subjective

causes.43 Duty is the condition of a pure will, good in itself acting from the necessity

of action derived from respect for the practical and universal law.44 In other words, a

good will excludes sensuous motives and recognizes a duty to act on the basis of

moral principles that are universal in form in opposition to principles that are

connected to particular objects. However, recognition of a duty does not

automatically mean that a person will act on that basis because subjective

inclinations may overpower our moral sense. For Kant, the more inclinations there

are against performing a duty and the fewer inclinations there are in favour of its

performance, the greater the opportunity to show the intrinsic worth of the

commanded action through obedience to reason.

The second proposition of morality for Kant is that an action performed from duty is

to be considered morally worthy in relation to the maxim by which it is determined

and not the purpose to be achieved.45 In other words, the moral worth of an action is

not to be derived from the expected effect or any principle motivated by an expected

result; to act from duty is to be motivated by unconditional reason, not desire or self-

love. The happiness of others, for example, might be an object of the will, but if it

were to be the determining ground of a maxim it would presuppose a natural

sympathy or disposition grounded in personal satisfaction, a conditional interest.

Kant is unwilling to accept this conditional connection as the determining ground of a

maxim because it would not coincide with his goal of legislating unconditional

universal law. Instead, Kant derives the acceptance of the principle to further the

43 Ibid. p.49 and Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.33.44 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.23.45 Ibid. p.19.

27

27

happiness of others from the universalization of the maxim of self-love. Kant argues

that the universal application of the maxim of self-love requires recognition of the

happiness of others. In such a case, the determining ground of the will is the

universal form of the law and not its particular content, it is therefore acceptable on

grounds that are equally valid for everyone.46 On this basis Kant claims it is not the

happiness of others, or any particular subjective condition, but the universal form of

the maxim, acceptable to each person, that is the determining ground of the will. It is

important for Kant to ground the concept of duty in maxims that reject desires such

as sympathy because moral laws are imperatives given by reason, whereas

inclinations are merely psychological propensities that cannot be commanded.

Kant claims that the third proposition of morality follows from the first two. Duty is

the necessity of an action performed from respect for the law.47 Rather than finding

worth in the expected result, Kant ascribes worth, and therefore respect, to the

ground of the will. He claims that conformity to the universal form of law is the only

principle of volition to remain after excluding consideration of inclination or desires,

the form of law is all that remains to motivate us to conform after discarding

empirical matter as a potential object of a maxim. “If all material of a law, i.e., every

object of the will considered as a ground of its determination, is taken from it,

nothing remains except the mere form of giving universal law.”48 What remains,

according to Kant, is the command that we not act in such a way that one could not

also will the maxim to be a universal law,49 or treat everyone the same.

46 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.35.47 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.19.48 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993. p.26.49 Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969. p.21.

28

28

Necessity and Obligation

To understand how Kant conceives of the necessity of moral action and the nature of

obligation represented by “duty” requires an understanding of the difference

between hypothetical and categorical judgments. Hypothetical propositions express

the practical necessity of action as a means to achieve a further end, for example

principles of skill or prudence. A categorical proposition, on the other hand, is seen as

objectively necessary, as good in itself, without regard to any other end or purpose.50

In both cases, reason acts as a cause to produce an action. The general idea is that a

rational agent recognizes a chain of inference, prior to experience, which connects

the idea of an end with an action that is necessary to achieve that end through the

use of reason. The action is therefore a product of the recognition of its apodeictic

necessity to achieve the selected end. Because practical reason is always concerned

with the actions of a person, the subject of a proposition is always a person, or more

particularly a will, and the predicate is always an action. The difference between a

hypothetical and a categorical practical proposition is the nature of the connection

between the will and the action, between the subject and the predicate. In the

hypothetical practical proposition the will is connected to the action through a

mediating inclination or desire of some kind, while in a categorical practical

proposition the will is connected to the action directly. Hypothetical practical

propositions hold that I ought to do something (as a means) if I desire a particular

consequence (as an end), which emphasizes the necessity of the means. In

categorical practical propositions, I ought to do an action for the sake of the end itself

without reference to a desire or inclination, which emphasizes the necessity of the

end and a corresponding obligation.

50 Ibid. p.36.

29

29

The first type of necessity does not indicate any kind of obligation but merely asserts

that to achieve a desired end I ought also will the means. The “ought” in this sense is

non-moral and operates as an example of instrumental reason. For example, the

proposition I ought to repay the money I borrow if I want to retain good credit is a

hypothetical practical proposition that connects the act of repayment with the

condition of retaining good credit. The subject properly described as “the will affected

by a desire” is connected to the predicate “action” by the conditional desire. If the

subject of a proposition is “the will affected by the desire to retain good credit” then

the act of repayment is connected to the will a priori without any other justification or

further reference to experience because repayment is the means to good credit. The

second type of necessity indicates an obligation to do an action without linking the

action to a conditional desire. I ought to accomplish an end for the sake of the end

itself. The “ought” in this sense is a moral proposition. In categorical practical

judgments, the predicate and the subject, or the action and the will, are connected

directly without any reference to an existing desire or inclination. I ought to repay the

money I borrow. If this proposition is taken to be true then no other reasons or

references are required for its justification. The fact that an agent believes he

“ought” to do an action is sufficient to demonstrate the moral nature of the

proposition. If the proposition was acceptable from the point of view of everyone with

a good will without contradiction then that would be sufficient for meeting the test of

the categorical imperative. Kant provides the example of the shop-keeper who is

motivated to provide the correct change for the customer. If the shop-keeper is

motivated by the desire to protect his reputation then the act of giving the correct

change is said to be motivated by self-interest. If however, the shop-keeper acts

based on recognition of an unconditional duty to provide correct change then it can

be said that his will was morally good and the act was motivated by moral

considerations rather than self-interest. Kant reasons that categorical validity and

corresponding moral obligations are the result of seeking an end for the sake of that

30

30

end. “I ought to repay the money I borrow” because I recognize the obligation or duty

as real or true without the need to motivate the action by a conditional interest such

as the desire to retain good credit. In other words, “I ought to repay the money I

borrow” because I recognize that everyone could agree and accept that everyone

should repay money they borrow. Kant argues that actions motivated by abstract

universalism possess objective moral worth because they are purged of motivations

of subjective self-interest, grounded in an understanding of a good will and respect

for the universal form of law. This form of reasoning relies on a prior recognition that

repaying the money is the right thing to do and an assumption that every rational

agent must agree, hence its universal validity. Conformity to the moral law is to act

from duty without appealing to an interest, desire, or inclination. It is to know the

difference between right and wrong without providing a material condition to justify

its observance. Kant views morality as a function of motivation that is constantly

opposed to our “lower” nature that seeks to act on the basis of subjective maxims

influenced by material conditions.

The necessity of action that Kant ascribes to moral propositions lies in the recognition

that every person would arrive at the same conclusion as concerns the necessary

action required to fulfill the duty whether motivated by a good will or not. Kant

assumes that given a true “ought” statement, anyone should be able to recognize

the necessity of the action to be done. Kant is not fundamentally concerned with the

detailed content of moral laws or the attempt to state what these objective laws are,

rather he assumes that we know what they are already or that we are capable of

recognizing them in the unconditional universal form. The a priori character of the

moral motive, that excludes experience, includes such duties as the duty not to

commit suicide, the duty not to make lying promises, the duty to develop our natural

talents, and the duty to help those in distress. Although there is no empirical

evidence available to establish the existence of the motive of duty, recognition that

31

31

we categorically ought to do an action from an unconditional motive is the basis for

ascribing moral worth to the will.

Kant assures us that we know the difference between moral propositions commanded

by duty and conditional propositions motivated by happiness or self-interest because

of the categorical imperative. “To be sure, common human reason does not think of

it abstractly in such a universal form, but it always has it in view and uses it as the

standard of its judgments. It would be easy to show how common human reason,

with this compass, knows well how to distinguish what is good, what is bad, and what

is consistent or inconsistent with duty.”51 In other words, moral propositions are the

product of a self-evident supreme moral law known by rational agents whose

application leads to moral propositions that are categorically valid. Any attempt to

justify a moral duty beyond the categorical assertion undermines the unconditional

nature of the obligation. If we try to explain the moral obligation of a duty by

providing a condition for its observance we transform the categorical form of validity

into a hypothetical proposition and destroy the obligation that is at issue. This is

important because the position of this paper is to examine these ideas and assert

that actions that rely on categorical propositions within discursive forms of validation

fail to escape hypothetical forms of expression because they are tied to conditions of

acceptance rooted in a consequential analysis. Categorical propositions do however,

result in descriptions of conditions that are persuasive and capable of universal

acceptance because they are motivated by a desire to diminish the influence of

subjective self-interest represented by various collective groups that claim universal

forms of validity and the conditions of good will necessary for observance within a

generalized form of agreement but do not avoid the disclosure and motivation of all

conditional interests involved.

51 Ibid. p.23.

32

32

Problems with the Categorical Imperative

Kant’s categorical imperative is both a description of moral action as well as a

method of determining moral principles capable of guiding action. As a description, it

is rooted in the idea that equal and reciprocal rules are intuitively used by moral

agents to discern the difference between moral and non-moral propositions. As a

method of determining moral propositions, it includes the assertion that the

categorical imperative, as the supreme moral law, provides a reliable and consistent

assessment of the moral worth of a principle regardless of the context. Kant argued

that the faculty of reason itself was able to prescribe the content of an imaginary

kingdom of ends based on respect for universal laws upheld by a good will that hold

necessarily and always. In practice, however, this claim is subject to some legitimate

criticism.

The first idea to approach a critique of Kant’s formulation is to understand that

applications of the categorical imperative do not always lead to identical moral

propositions or objective laws valid in each and every case. The process of various

people applying the standard of the categorical imperative can lead to error and/or

conflicting opinions and judgments attributable to diverse perspectives and

worldviews. Modern moral philosophers proclaim that reason cannot infallibly

determine “objective” moral facts and claims of this nature are open to criticisms of

moral tyranny. This understanding, incorporated into modern cognitive approaches

toward moral philosophy, suggests a need to reform the categorical imperative and

Kant’s approach to assessing moral validity. Jurgen Habermas makes use of the basic

intuitions captured by the categorical imperative and reformulates that standard in a

principle of universalization designed to operated within an intersubjective context

that recognizes the need for plurality, argumentation, and the giving of reasons as

part of any assessment of moral validity. The modern cognitive perspective attempts

33

33

to describe a more realistic understanding of the functions of the mind and processes

of value determination provided by advances in the history and treatment of these

ideas. The modern version rejects the foundational idea that objective moral laws

equally valid for everyone can be infallibly determined through individual reflection

and adopts the position that moral norms within communities of people require

consensus of principled moral agents who discuss and debate propositions within a

discursive context. Kant’s monological approach to moral theory is transformed into a

discourse related to subjective or intersubjective principles and norms and their

moral justification. Such a transition incorporates the insight that consensus is a

more reliable indication of normative rightness. The process of argumentation entails

more than a single declaration of what is universally valid, it entails consulting others

and listening to grounds that diverse perspectives can bring to bear on the validity of

moral principles and norms that then compete for claims of primacy through

processes of generalization and legitimacy through the application of public

standards that respect rules of impartial discourse.

In Kant’s historical-cultural situation, the assumption that categorical claims are valid

is based on acceptance of the idea that everyone already knows the difference

between right and wrong. This perspective denies the existence of moral dissent and

is the product of a homogenized worldview unaware of the historicity and

contingency of conventional reasoning. In today’s context of democratic pluralism,

categorical validity is replaced by intersubjective validity that recognizes the need to

critically test existing and proposed norms through argumentation and the giving of

reasons by a community of participants in the determination of what is reliable or

“true.” This insight is the starting point for Habermas who proposes a theory of

argumentation that describes necessary rules of consensual communication designed

to undermine unilateral justifications that claim objectivity and promote public

debate. Under such a revision, strong claims of objectivity attached to the categorical

34

34

imperative are replaced by weaker intersubjective claims that apply the standard of

universality within moral discursive arguments that retain Kant’s basic aim of

commanding reason to achieve universal acceptance, cooperation and equal

consideration for all people.

The second idea to approach a critique of Kant’s formulation is contained in the

proposition that moral reasoning transcends hypothetical forms of reasoning as well

as the form of necessity that accompanies the prior acceptance of an end. Kant

argued that the very giving of a reason for adopting a maxim undermined the

obligation of moral worth because it corrupted the motivation and changed

categorical validity into a hypothetical proposition. It can be suggested however, that

if moral propositions require a reasoned justification within discursive contexts, as

claimed by modern moral theory, moral agents may not be able to avoid hypothetical

forms for moral statements. The additional burden of discursive forms of justification

that judge moral worth indicate that universal standards for maxims result in

persuasive forms of logic that are decided by the force of the better argument rather

than recognition of de facto objective universal agreements. If this is true, the

process of moral reasoning in operation for participants may be, like Kant, no more

than the prior acceptance of pre-conditional ends that appear to be the subjective

choices of the philosopher for the promotion and advance of mutual respect and

notions of equality within a universal framework. Understood as generalized primary

standards, the resulting moral judgments are merely persuasive propositions that are

appealing to moral agents because they reject the notion of creating an advantage or

disadvantage for any particular group or person. The acceptance of the ideals of

respect and equality that operate as part of abstract universalism represent

justificatory hypothetical reasons to adopt universal moral determinations, the values

of which are presupposed as ends that serve to limit or define the characteristics of

all subsequent moral propositions. Although such a reification undermines Kant’s

35

35

construction of moral obligation, it serves to clarify the process of moral reasoning

being advocated and helps to provide a reasoned justification for particular maxims

of action that aim to avoid contradiction within a universal process of reasoning and

be agreeable to most people under conditions of exercising a good will and

understanding the equal application of a law.

To further investigate this idea, Kant held that different motivations are tied to a

distinction between the form of a proposition and its content. He argued that reason

is persuaded to adopt the categorical imperative in part because it prefers the use of

the universal form purged of empirical or sensual content and conditions. What is of

interest here is whether it is possible to separate conditional interests from decisions

and actions. Kant’s conception of autonomy in conjunction with a good will attempts

to purge material subjective motives and interests allegedly leaving only the general

form of “the universal validity of maxims” as a cause capable of determining the will.

In contrast to hypothetical imperatives where actions are determined by the

necessity of satisfying a given condition, the categorical imperative is alleged to

contain no conditions. On this basis, Kant argues that the only remaining motivation

to adopt the categorical imperative is the general form of the universal law itself

valid for every person, a command that carries an implicit demand to conform to the

law.52 All other propositions are hypothetical in form.

If notions of mutual respect and equality that result from the application of the

categorical imperative demonstrate the possibility of unconditional propositions

grounded in recognition of noumena and purged of sensuous conditions through a

dialectical form of abstract reasoning then conditional interests are tied to tangible

goals and intangible sense perceptions or desires rooted within the world of

appearance. Kant attempts to achieve impartiality by relying on the universal form

52 Ibid. p.92.

36

36

and grounds equally valid for everyone and excluding motivations that seek

subjective and exclusive benefits. From a motivational perspective, Kant’s distinction

between heteronomy and autonomy attempts to separate motives of self-interested

material bias, personal feelings, and desires on the one hand, and impartial reflection

grounded in respect for self-legislated universal laws equally valid for everyone on

the other. However, if one accepts that the categorical imperative is merely a

persuasive formulation of a moral standard that relies on the prior acceptance of

abstract universal principles it can be argued that Kant does not establish the use of

unconditional motives because the universal principles themselves operate as

conditions insofar as they recommend mutual respect and equality as the product of

moral reasoning. This conclusion is foreshadowed by Kant’s own speculation that our

capacity to conceive of an unconditional interest is beyond our ability and in all

events inconceivable.53 Kant’s attempt to establish unconditional motives is based on

a claim that moral agents could purge their will of conditional preferences. The only

example he could give was the categorical imperative.

The ground used to support the idea that practical reason and the will of a person

could be motivated by something other than a conditional interest was really nothing

more than Kant’s fondness for dialectal reasoning through exclusion. Kant uses a

similar approach to establish the idea that freedom can be demonstrated by

eliminating all empirical grounds of causation. Direct observation seems to support

the idea that self-determining causes operate beyond determinism, however the

same method of reasoning cannot establish the existence of unconditional motives.

To counter the idea of a pure unconditional motive all one has to do is suggest that

the categorical imperative is linked to the satisfaction of a desire or benefit, even if

that desire is to adopt an impartial perspective in the consideration of the collective

interests of others. From Kant’s own perspective, the desire to discover the content

53 Ibid. p.93.

37

37

of pure practical reason and the prescription to use the universal form itself can be

viewed as the satisfaction of a desire to use a general and abstract law. The will to

apply a universal law serves to satisfy the desire to use the universal form.

A stronger claim would be to assert that all determining grounds of the will are

attached to conditional interests and that claims of universal form are merely a

special set of universal content. Given this argument all action and the will is viewed

as attached to conditional interests of some kind, whether universal or limited. What

is inconceivable is that action and the will should be considered free from conditional

interests. For Kant, to act from duty is to be motivated by an interest, even if that

interest is in being impartial. In such a case, the exercise of practical reason, always

aiming at moral action through the application of principled maxims, discloses and

promotes a conditional interest when it prefers to use the categorical imperative to

guide action. If this argument is accepted then the categorical imperative is just one

more conditional hypothetical imperative with the unusual condition of attempting to

purge itself of conditions (unsuccessfully) and the use of the idea of a universal law.

At best, the use of the term “unconditional” in Kant can be used to describe a

preference for abstract principles of mutual respect and equality. Kant believed that

moral actions should be judged without regard to empirical outcomes. It seems to me

that because practical reason is aimed at action, decisions to act will always lead to

empirical results or consequences attached to particular conditional interests,

providing an outcome that is advantageous for some and a barrier to others. In other

words, all reasoning that is used to support an action discloses some kind of

conditional interest represented by a specific outcome. Whether one is motivated by

empirical incentives or paradoxical abstract logic, the will is incapable of making a

decision without using some kind of standard or result that aligns with conditional

interests, in competition, and capable of being disclosed in the consequences of an

action, even if only in hindsight.

38

38

Kant would argue that such a position would destroy the possibility of moral

propositions, however, the better view is that it discourages the idea that universal

laws or principles are the result of a separation of form and content between

unconditional and conditional interests in favour of the idea that a conditional desire

exists to consider the general interests of all parties without the influence of self-

interest. The distinction to be made is whether self-interest or a full consideration of

the interests of others is a more persuasive basis for moral justification in a

competition for conditional motivates that aim to achieve universal a priori

acceptance. The question for moral theory is not to ask whether unconditional

principles are possible, but what desires or interests are being satisfied by the

application of universal moral principles or maxims. By way of such an argument, the

dichotomy proposed between form and content collapses into a unity of desires or a

continuum of interests including an interest to purge all interests except commands

of universal moral acceptance. Rather than distinguishing between the form and

content of practical reasoning, Kant perhaps might have been satisfied with a less

ambitious goal to distinguish between desires of material advantage and self-interest

and the desire to achieve an impartial consideration of collective interests. This

would have preserved the attempt to prevent selfish empirical conditional interests

influencing the will in moral propositions without having to postulate the fiction of a

pure practical reason and an absolute moral standard. If one accepts the argument

that unconditional principles are impossible then the search for grounds equally valid

for everyone becomes a search for common interests shared by everyone. It is on

this basis that Habermas constructs his theory of discourse ethics.

It is the intention of this paper to follow the reasoning of Habermas with a view

toward understanding his conception of validity for moral principles and claims of

necessity that accompany cooperative discourse conditions as he transforms Kant’s

39

39

categorical imperative from an objective law into a notion of universal agreement

that highlights the presuppositions of rational and cooperative communication. The

search for grounds equally valid for everyone becomes a search for shared interests

or a “common will” and the application of procedural discourse rules. Habermas, like

Kant, argues that it is possible for moral reasoning to transcend the influence of

conditional interests and establish a categorical form of moral obligation, a claim that

is at odds with the thesis of this paper. He argues that an unlimited communication

community that requires an ideal role taking exchange can preserve Kant’s purpose

of describing unconditional moral commands within an intersubjective context. The

author will argue that Habermas fails to escape from conditional and hypothetical

reasoning, just as Kant did, although he succeeds in demonstrating that some

reasons for ethical behaviour are better than others based on an appeal to common

interests and standards of universality that evaluate the acceptability of

consequences from the perspective of each participant engaged in an inclusive

dialogue. The thesis of this paper is to argue that the goal of establishing moral

obligations through support of categorical and unconditional propositions is flawed. If

unconditional validity cannot be achieved as I have suggested, then moral

obligations, as outlined by Kant and Habermas are reduced to a voluntary

undertaking morally binding only on those of good will who accept the moral

command.

Part II: Habermas’ Moral Theory: Communicative Ethics

Introduction to Habermas

Cognitive Perspective

40

40

In the tradition of Immanuel Kant, cognitive philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas

investigate in what sense and in what way moral commands and moral norms are

justified.54 Habermas is able to articulate his moral theory by comparing, contrasting,

and selectively building on works that collectively exhaust the entire field of cognitive

philosophy and beyond. I have chosen to limit my investigation of cognitive

philosophy to his works because his theory incorporates a thorough explanation of

the elements involved in a cognitive approach. His approach is grounded in an

analysis of the conditions and content of discourse and can be considered to be a

response to natural law theories.

The interesting thing about the framework he establishes for the validity of moral

propositions is that it is valid in moral discourse as well as other norm setting

discourses. In Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action and The Inclusion of

the Other, Habermas argues in favour of adopting a theory of communicative action

and discourse ethics within a proceduralist view of legitimate state action. He is

concerned with the problem of political legitimacy. The presuppositions of

communicative action and practical discourse are used as standards to measure the

democratic nature of the modern legal system viewed as justified to the extent that

rules and procedures are in congruence with communicative principles. For the

purposes of this investigation however, I have limited my examination to the context

of moral theory and the manner in which substantive norms are justified through the

basic propositions of discursive validation.

In Habermas’ moral theory, discourse analysis is used to examine what kinds of

arguments or reasoning are acceptable to support moral decisions. For Habermas,

this approach begins with an examination of the cognitive content of moral

utterances in the context of everyday communicative action. His method is to map

54 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.57.

41

41

pragmatic presuppositions of communicative action into rules of discourse that

operate as a warrant of normative rightness in the context of argumentation. For

Habermas only consideration of the conditions of communicative agreement, after

religion and metaphysics, can ground the justification of a morality of equal respect

and solidarisitic responsibility for everyone. “If the good is no longer laid down in a

transcendent manner, the only principle of the good seems to be consideration for

members of the community, whose membership in turn can no longer be limited, and

hence consideration for all others – which means consideration for their wishes and

interests.”55 In other words, discursive justification is grounded on the basic premise

of listening and engaging participants in a conversation guided by procedural rules

that allow for the equal consideration of the interests of everyone.

Underlying the shift in focus from Kant’s philosophy of consciousness to Habermas’

philosophy of language is a rejection of an ultimate justification of a transcendental

moral truth derived from the faculty of reason. In its place is an examination of the

workings of language, the operation of unavoidable pragmatic presuppositions within

a shared social context, and the recognition that normative claims may be fallible.

The objective “fact of pure reason” established by Kant to justify universal ought

statements is rejected and replaced by a dialogical approach that recognizes the

need for consensus on the validity of norms and principles within a public discourse.

Habermas’ transformation of Kant’s conception retains the basic foundation of

morality established by Kant with a modern emphasize on participation and

agreement. Discourse ethics is Habermas’ attempt to set out the rules of

argumentation that establish a procedural framework for the application and

justification of normative statements. His approach entails a discursive procedure

that provides participants with an actual, open, public forum for moral

argumentation. The modern cognitive framework rejects Kant’s solipsistic method of

55 Habermas, Jurgen. The Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.23.

42

42

justification relying as it does on categorical “ought” assertions and individual

recognition of objective unconditional duties in favour of intersubjective agreements

reached through the dialogical act of open and domination-free argumentation.

I will begin my examination of the moral theory of Habermas by investigating his

theory of communicative action that sets out the manner in which expectations and

norms between people are established. Habermas believes, however, that moral

theory needs to do more than justify a pre-existing horizon of received “moral”

norms, it should attempt to set out the conditions of validity for an “impartial point of

view.” The construction of an impartial point of view is designed to support

participants engaged in an intersubjective process of normative justification. Kant’s

focus on a unilateral determination of unconditional moral principles is

recontextualized by Habermas within an intersubjective context of dialogue and

argumentation that retains a modified version of Kant’s categorical imperative,

known as the principle of universalization and includes other rules necessary for a

cooperative discourse in the search for the better argument. The principle of

universalization tries to deliver on the basic promise of equality and reciprocity in

Kant’s moral theory. However the transition to intersubjective validity involves more

than one individual ruling out maxims of action based on perceived contradictions

with the categorical imperative, it requires that actions and norms be capable of

reasoned justification through the giving of persuasive reasons in the context of

practical discourse. For Habermas, the justification of action in terms of valid norms

and the justification of norms in terms of principles worthy of recognition is a process

of clarification and communication that binds the will through the construction of

conviction grounded in an examination of the potential consequences of adopting a

norm from the perspective of each group affected. Habermas’ introduction of a

consequential analysis in moral theory can be contrasted with Kant’s attempt to

establish moral propositions independent of a consequential perspective. Upon this

43

43

edifice, Habermas claims to be able to construct a moral point of view that operates

as something other than an instrumental use of reason.

Skepticism

Modern value skepticism rejects the idea that moral issues can be settled on the

basis of intersubjectively binding reasons. Skeptics argue that normative statements

cannot be justified like descriptive statements as true or false. On this basis, skeptics

claim that there is no moral order, moral objects or moral facts. By limiting reason to

a form of instrumental rationality, value skeptics base ethical conceptions on the

prior acceptance of a goal followed by a means-end analysis on how to attain the

desired outcome. Habermas is motivated to overcome value skepticism and

arguments that suggest morals and norms are based on nothing more than purely

subjective and relative emotional dispositions and attitudes, explainable as

preference-based empirical phenomena. Habermas attempts to construct an

alternative basis for the validity of moral norms to overcome skeptical claims that

moral judgments are motivated by rational self-interest or the satisfaction of feelings

justified in a purposive-rational manner. Habermas, like Kant, is trying to explain the

obligatory character of moral duties motivated by rational force alone. He claims that

classical empiricism cannot explain the obligatory force of moral norms in terms of

self-interested preferences just as they cannot explain the fact that actors motivated

by moral feelings argue about moral judgments with reasons. In other words,

Habermas proposes to ground the binding character of moral duties in the

recognition that moral feelings express attitudes that imply moral judgments

containing cognitive content.56 In such a fashion he argues against a limited

conception of practical reason that restricts it to operations of instrumental reason in

favour of a notion of practical reflection that accepts “epistemic” reasons within an

56 Habermas, Jurgen. The Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.16.

44

44

intersubjective shared social world. Although his description of moral phenomena,

rooted in an anthropological study of moral reasoning in everyday life, demonstrates

the potential for reasoning to be grounded in something other than rational self-

interest, I suggest that his approach does not avoid the operation of a presupposed

value choice in the act of adopting discourse ethics and the search for the better

argument. I am not persuaded that the rules of moral reasoning are entirely free of

hypothetical necessity or the prior acceptance of a moral end. I intend to argue that

despite this limitation, cognitive philosophy is able to discredit the position that no

moral order can be found within moral reasoning.

Habermas asserts that to limit ethical reasoning to the preference based motives of a

rational chooser opens such a position to criticisms of moral relativity and

undermines the obligatory nature of moral expectations. He rejects social contract

theory because it is not able to disclose any kind of morally privileged position. “An

agreement among contracting partners motivated by interests can lead at best to an

externally imposed social regulation of conduct, but not to a binding, let alone

universalistic, conception of the common good.”57 Agreements between interested

parties cannot by themselves ground binding obligations because a self-interested

person could choose to exit from existing agreements whenever they might benefit

from such deviance. Similar to social contract theory, Habermas’ conception of

intersubjective validity is the best method available to justify normative agreements

that approach the ideal of universal acceptance and obligation while remaining aware

that such agreements may be subject to change over time. His approach

demonstrates that practical reason can overcome criticisms of moral relativity, or at

least establish that cooperative communication is a better method of constructing

and maintaining moral norms in comparison with strategic action. In the final

analysis, although Habermas is able to establish a privileged position for discourse

57 Ibid. p.23.

45

45

ethics, I suggest his theory is subject to some internal limitations that require

rejection of the claim to be able to ground binding moral obligations on everyone

through the discursive validation of norms. Based on this understanding, if Kant’s

notion of moral worth is to retain any meaning in a modern context, it must be

reflected in the choice to be motivated by something other than self-interest, which

means to be motivated by the interests of others.

The Foundations of Modern Moral Reasoning

Communicative Action

Habermas begins his search for universal moral principles to ground the substance of

equal respect and solidaristic responsibility for everyone in the investigation of

everyday ethical insights as they relate to the spontaneous workings of practical

reason. Habermas claims that the study of a moral vocabulary and the need for

rational justification points toward a theory of argumentation that demonstrates a

level of communication rooted in the everyday. His theory of discourse ethics is

grounded in recognition of necessary presuppositions of communicative action.

Habermas proposes that moral phenomena are grasped in the first person

performative attitudes of communicative practices. Communicative action found in

everyday speech aims to coordinate future plans of action for participants by way of

sharing moral action and norms. It is based on the observation that participants in

argumentation coordinate their plans of action consensually. Habermas distinguishes

communicative action from strategic action that attempts to secure compliance or

cause a desired behaviour by influencing a person by way of threatened sanction or

promised reward.

46

46

Communicative action is a type of discourse that adopts norms and attempts to

rationally motivate others through an offer to redeem a validity claim in the future.

Based on the observation that obligations arise between participants engaged in

argumentation by reaching an agreement on pragmatic situation-specific meanings

in everyday conversation, Habermas observes that a speaker incurs an obligation to

back up a claim so long as the agreed actions do not contradict other propositions

the actors accept as true at any given point.58 A speaker incurs an obligation to back

up a claim made during discourse based on acceptance by the hearer insofar as they

both intend to orient future action around the acceptance and non-contradiction of

the claim. When accepted, the offer of normative validity is the source of a bonding

effect between people and results in an expectation or obligation. These obligations

take the form of “moral norms” or customary practices, a unit of analysis that

displaces the focus that Kant placed on moral principles or laws. Moral norms or

customary practices provide consistent rules of behaviour and an accompanying

feeling of being obligated. Habermas claims that these generalized behavioural

expectations promote rule-governed interaction and equal and exceptionless

obligations on the group.59

Habermas links the normative validity of moral commands and norms of action to a

shared social world that forms a “universe of norms,” similar to Kant’s idea of a

kingdom of ends. He suggests that moral consciousness is grounded in the fact that

moral feelings are apparent in everyday life and accessible to us as first person

performative attitudes involved in, for example, the condemnation of a wrong or a

violation of underlying normative expectations held by individuals and members of a

social group. The moral validity of a norm is reflected in the feeling of being obligated

58 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. see. pp. 58, 59.59

? Habermas, Jurgen. The Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.55.

47

47

and affective attitudes, such as resentment, that accompany noted transgressions of

established norms within a specific community. These norms must be continually

reestablished within legitimately ordered interpersonal relationships in order to exist.

They are, however, produced and maintained in society through individual conviction

and institutionalized sanction. The existence of a norm is demonstrative of an

existing convention to observe a norm but this fact does not indicate whether the

norm is worthy of recognition. The capacity of a norm to claim normative rightness

depends on more than mass acceptance, its redemption and validity is said to be a

product of the logic of practical discourse.60 Similar to Kant, Habermas suggests that

abstract universal principles are capable of establishing a “moral” realm within

human experience based on insight or the force of the better argument.

Intersubjective Validity

The disclosure of the conditions of communicative action demonstrate a desire to

construct a moral theory that is congruent with anthropological observations of how

moral feelings and reasons manifest themselves in everyday activity. For Habermas,

intersubjective validity is a product of communicative agreements that establish

consensus between people. Moral validity is a property of normative propositions that

have the potential to achieve a universal consensus within a process of

communication that reaches a shared understanding grounded in communicative

action. The rules of discourse ethics and the introduction of intersubjective validity

within modern frameworks of moral reasoning represent key features in the

transition from Kant to Habermas.

Habermas outlines three types of intersubjective claims to validity that can be made

about the world in the form of descriptive, normative, and personal statements.

60 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.62.

48

48

Descriptive claims of truth refer to facts about the objective world, normative claims

of rightness refer to an interpersonally ordered shared social world, and personal

claims of truthfulness are said to refer to the subjective conditions of an individual.61

Claims of descriptive facts or shared social norms give rise to obligations that take

the form of an expectation to redeem a claim in the future through the provision of

acceptable reasons. Claims relating to subjective personal conditions disclose an

obligation to act in conformity with agreed claims. Such a schematic division

demonstrates Habermas’ desire to construct a distinct set of statements devoted to

moral issues that claim normative rightness and operate by condoning specific

actions and setting expectations within a moral community.

The use of intersubjective validity claims within moral theory are to be distinguished

from Kantian monological deductions that contain objective valid laws.

Intersubjective claims are based on pragmatic mutual recognition and acceptance

rather than claims of discovering immutable and timeless laws of freedom. Toward

this end, Habermas envisions a process of public argumentation where people

debate their own needs and wants in the course of determining social norms, but

because these positions are tied to cultural interpretations and intersubjectively

shared traditions, he argues, they must not be justified monologically. The shift from

practical reason to practical deliberation decontextualizes first person monological

determinations of moral principles and submits them to an intersubjective process of

argumentation and agreement. The existence of everyday normative conflicts linked

to disruptions of pre-existing factual normative agreements of consensus suggest

that practical-moral problems ought to be handled cooperatively rather than

monologically. Argumentation, viewed as a process of repairing a disrupted

consensus, operates either by restoring intersubjective recognition of a validity claim

61 Ibid. p.58.

49

49

or recognizing a new claim in substitution for an old one.62 These agreements can

only be achieved within a cooperative and reflexive dialogical situation.

Intersubjectively binding agreements, according to Habermas, are based on reasons

rooted in psychological and emotional dispositions of moral feelings. In order to

overcome the position of value skeptics who claim that normative statements fail to

disclose “truth” conditions, Habermas asserts that personal emotional responses

generated by violations of an accepted norm act as analogous “truth” conditions

similar to the validation of descriptive statements based on observation of facts. He

claims that, “feelings seem to have a similar function for the moral justification of

action as sense perceptions have for the theoretical justification of facts.”63 Feelings

provide evidence of moral standards contained within normative statements just as

sense perceptions provide evidence of facts in descriptive sentences. The obligation

entailed by accepting a claim of normative rightness is a product of an implicit or

explicit intersubjective agreement and results in a corresponding feeling. The

obligation consists of an agreement between people to orient future action around

acceptance of the claim, the expectation to be able to provide good reasons for

accepting the claim, and an intention to not contradict the claim in the future.

Habermas puts the matter into the following notational form: “When we assert “p”

and thereby claim truth for “p” we accept the obligation to defend “p” in

argumentation – in full awareness of its fallibility – against all future objections.”64

The binding nature of the obligation is normative insofar as violations of existing

norms produce conflicts and feelings of resentment. Personal emotional responses,

such as resentment, demonstrate the existence of suprapersonal standards that are

capable of uniting within a normative consensus based on an intersubjective

agreement, but they do not address the issue of the worth of any accepted norm. It is

62 Ibid. p.67.63 Ibid. p.50.64 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.37.

50

50

the persuasive nature of the reasons provided that serve to ground claims of worth

and normative rightness. For Kant, the categorical form of validity as represented by

the assertion that I ought to do this or that moral action because I recognize it as a

universal moral duty or end in itself (the categorical imperative) was sufficient to bind

the will to practical reason and accomplish this act of persuasion. For Habermas, a

different route must be constructed which is accomplished by grounding norms in an

impartial or “moral point of view.”

Ethical and Moral Contexts

Morality is depicted by Habermas as an aspect of public discourse that has emerged

from a preexisting unquestioned background of particular value configurations

belonging to collective and individual modes of life. Principled morality emerges from

this established lifeworld as a form of abstract reflexivity that includes the demand to

justify itself in public argumentation. For Habermas, the moral point of view develops

when an agent in the social world adopts the hypothetical attitude of a participant in

a dialogue who seeks to justify value choices beyond the context of an already

accepted ethical lifeworld. He claims that this development leads to a context-

independent moral standard that achieves impartial judgment. Within such a

framework moral development is viewed as a process of recognizing generalizable

interests that participants of a discourse all share in common.

Habermas is careful to distinguish between pragmatic questions, ethical questions,

and moral questions in argumentation relating to moral theory. The main advantage

of these distinctions is the separation between pragmatic, ethical and moral reasons,

each of which derive their meaning from a context-dependent, or in the case of moral

reasons, context-independent deliberative practice. Each sphere of deliberation

contains a different type of validity claim that sets out different criteria for what

51

51

counts as rationally acceptable in the form of good reasons. Pragmatic questions

typically disclose individual interests of rational choice viewed from exclusively

purposive-rational perspectives, a form of instrumental rationality dependent on the

prior acceptance of some end. Ethical questions of self-clarification disclose

evaluations of the good or not misspent life determined in relation to identities and

value-orientations held by specific communities whose determinations operate as

primary grounds of “epistemic” truth, while moral questions are said to focus on the

equal interests of everyone and disclose a set well-ordered interpersonal relations

derived from the application of the principle of universalization in a discourse of

normative justification.

The ethical point of view sets the frame for value judgments and evaluative self-

understandings of identity developed within the context of a morally constituted

community. First person singular perspectives and first person plural perspectives

generate questions relating to how we understand ourselves as part of a community,

how we should orient our lives, or what is best for me (or us) in the long run all things

considered. Individuals who find themselves within a particular intersubjective shared

social life generally accept a shared ethos that has been “proved” in practice.65

Similar to the Piaget tradition of moral development, the first person perspective

developed within a limited socio-cultural horizon based on ego-centric interests

matures into consideration of the generalizable interests of others. Habermas claims

that attempts at norm justification within a shared ethos inevitably lead to abstract

and general principles that require more than a first person perspective of an

individual acting on the basis of personal preference. Following the development of

moral intuitions set out by Kohlberg’s theory of moral development,66 Habermas

claims that in the later stages of moral development, the introduction of a reflective

65 Ibid. p.26.66 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.127.

52

52

hypothetical attitude transforms the unquestioned, habitual, and particular ethical

evaluations into questionable social conventions that need principled justification.

The procedure of norm-justification through discourse is a product of “the inevitable

moralization of a social world become problematic.”67 What appears to be

“objectively rational” or “objectively desirable” within an ethical lifeworld is

subsequently viewed from the hypothetical perspective as the intersubjective

recognition of value dependent on the free will and choice of individuals.

Habermas argues that practical deliberation is split between ethical evaluative

questions that result in various arrangements of particular conceptions of the good

life, related to the identity of groups and individuals, and moral questions relating to

justice which can be decided rationally on the basis of generalized and universal

interests. Questions of the good life involve rational evaluative self-clarification while

questions of justice incorporate the moral point of view and attempt to consider the

equal interests of everyone. Questions of the good life have the advantage of being

contextual and concrete, posed within the horizon of a particular social group that

exists within an accepted cultural identity. Questions of justice, on the other hand,

are said to be abstract and divorced of the context of a lifeworld relying on the

persuasive nature of better reasons for their existence. According to Habermas, the

selection of normative issues through deontological abstraction serves to divorce

hypothetical issues of justice from subjective preferences embodied in evaluative

statements. This procedure sorts through practical issues and selects only those that

are capable of generalization and rational debate.68 In this manner, moral questions

are dissociated from particular contexts and solutions are dissociated from subjective

motives, despite the recognition that moral solutions require contextual sensitivity in

application. What remains is the construction of a realm of practical discourse that is

67 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.165.68 Ibid. p.204.

53

53

abstract, context-independent, and conscious of itself as engaged in a process of

argumentation. The issue of whether Habermas is able to achieve a context-

independent examination of moral issues will be examined further below.

Justification

Justification is often viewed as a deductive or inferential process where a conclusion

is derived from a premise, or something is derived from something else. People

sometimes think of justification in terms of a “proof” such as found in the domains of

mathematics, logic, or physics, which seek final justification. Forms of justification

typically involve grounds of validity that provide reasons, which if accepted, are the

basis of justification. According to Habermas, moral norms are valid if they “could win

the agreement of all concerned, on the condition that they jointly examine in

practical discourse, whether a corresponding practice is in the equal interest of all.”69

The claim of a moral norm to represent a practice in the equal interests of everyone

is not really capable of being proved in an empirical sense and should not be

confused with the validity of empirical claims. In the case of descriptive propositions

for example, validity relies on empirically testing an accurate correspondence

between a statement and an object in the world. The validity of descriptive

statements signifies the statement has been or could be tested by a community of

people to determine if the “truth” corresponds to the statement. Validity in the

context of normative rightness, however, cannot signify the potential for a statement

to be empirically tested for factual congruence but rather makes a weaker claim of

reliability based on the potential for a speaker to redeem the claim in discourse, or in

the case of moral norms through a consensus formed within a discursive context that

does not exclude relevant arguments and interests. Validity in this context

represents a contribution to the justification and acceptance of a claim to normative

69 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. pp.35-6.

54

54

rightness. Reliability in the determination of moral norms is a product of acceptability

and impartial discourse conditions that provide the opportunity for affected parties to

contribute. Validity in both cases is a product of intersubjective agreement, one

based on the independent testing of empirical evidence, the other based on

accepting good reasons within impartial discourse conditions. At best, validity

represents a claim of reliability aimed at persuading people to adopt a particular

proposition as “true” within a particular context. In the case of normative claims,

assertions of a final justification are unlikely and philosophers who endorse

communicative ethics, such as Seyla Benhabib, prefer to emphasize the need for an

ongoing discourse to remain open to changing conditions and circumstance. In

general, validity is linked to the rationality of the procedure for attaining agreement

and the conditions required to sustain an ongoing practice of moral discourse. The

aim is to promote the better argument rather than arriving at a final determination of

“truth” because normative claims are fallible and any current consensus could be

displaced by a different consensus at some point in the future.

If rational agents must rely on the persuasive nature of reasons to convince

themselves of the worth of a moral proposition, then one of the primary issues for

moral reasoning is the context within which that decision takes place. Kant’s system

of reasoning assumes that individuals are capable of applying the principle of

universalization without the need for consultation or discussion with others, that

every person can recognize moral duty. Modern moral philosophers support ideas of

communicative ethics and disagree with Kant’s reliance on monological justification.

They prefer to test the moral worth of a norm within an ideal communicative

community. If moral norms result in equal and exceptionless obligations for

everyone, as Habermas claims, then moral norm justification should be tested by

more than one person or a single act of the imagination. Greater assurance of

reliability is created by a plurality of participants because each participant tests the

55

55

acceptability of a moral norm from their own perspective. This decreases the

potential for fallible determinations of universal propositions in real discourse. Rather

than having one person determine the existence of a moral norm by using the

categorical imperative, everyone is invited to engage in argumentation that aims at

achieving a consensus about the acceptability of a moral proposition given conditions

that reject strategic forms of motivation and action. What is of worth in the

determination of a moral norm are cooperative discourse conditions rooted in

descriptions of everyday consensual communicative actions.

Overall, Habermas conceives of a three step process for normative justification.70

First, practical deliberation is regarded as the only resource for the establishment of

impartial judgment for moral questions captured by the formulation of the discourse

principle: “Only those norms can claim validity that could meet with the acceptance

of all concerned in practical discourse.” Second, the principle of universalization

provides a rule of argumentation that sets out how norms can be justified: “A norm is

valid when the foreseeable consequences and side effects of its general observance

for the interests and value-orientations of each individual could be jointly accepted

by all concerned without coersion.” And third, the selection of norms within a practice

of justification must embody generalizable interests capable of commanding

universal agreement because they are common to everyone. Through this process,

normatively binding obligations that are generalizable to the point of being common

to everyone are justified through an inclusive dialogue that applies the principle of

universalization. The principle of universalization relies on the increased reliability of

multiple participants who speculate on the acceptability of a norm through an

analysis of the consequences for all concerned. The inclusion of all concerned

promotes a dialogue that forces participants to consider the interests of all

70 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. see pp.41-3.

56

56

concerned within the context of a reciprocal ideal role exchange. A detailed analysis

of this process of justification follow.

Ideal Role Taking

Habermas conceives of the construction and use of an impartial “moral point of view”

as a product of an ideal role taking exercise that attempts to enlarge the interpretive

perspectives of individuals in the context of argumentation. A position of impartiality

is constructed on the basis of an ideally extended “we-perspective” from which all

may test in common a controversial norm. The moral point of view intends to compel

the universal exchange of roles based on the requirement that all affected parties

consider the position of all others and in particular the consequences of adopting the

norm from each perspective.71 Habermas claims that the institutionalization of

impartial discourse rules and the practice of joint deliberations may help to persuade

participants that moral norms are justified because they were determined within

impartial discourse conditions.

Habermas claims that the procedure of ideal role taking is linked with emotional

dispositions and attitudes like empathy and care for ones neighbour which are seen

as necessary emotional prerequisites for the cognitive operations expected of

participants in moral discourse.72 Maturity is the integration of cognitive operations

and emotional dispositions and attitudes in the process of justifying and applying

norms that overcome the ego-centric position in favour of consideration of the

interests of all concerned. Within such a view there is a connection between maturity

and the recognition that everyone has the right to participate in moral discourse and

be empowered by symmetrical rights of assertion. The imposition of an impartial

71 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.182.72 Ibid. p.182.

57

57

perspective bolsters the credibility of obligations and norms established within such a

process. The use of an impartial perspective leading to an insightful will formation

requires more than equal treatment, it requires discursive agreements that depend

on participation, individual “yes” or “no” responses, an analysis of consequences,

and the overcoming of the egocentric perspective.

The Moral Point of View

Kant used practical reason to ground an impartial perspective to judge moral actions

and principles through the use of the categorical imperative, what Habermas calls

the “moral point of view.” A principle or norm of action was considered free from

subjective interests due to the generality and universality of the prescribed law that

regulated matters valid for each individual. Habermas makes a similar distinction. He

uses the abstract moral question of “what is in the equal interest of all” to overcome

criticisms of relativity inherent in context-bound ethical determinations of what is

best for me or us in the long run all things considered. The ethical perspective that

views norms as “justified in our context” becomes a claim from the moral point of

view to be “justified in every context.”73 Based on this reasoning, Habermas asserts

that issues of justice can be given priority over evaluative questions relating to the

good life because they embody shared interests. The good that is relevant from the

moral point of view is incorporated in an enlarged first person plural perspective of a

community that does not exclude anyone.74

Within such an expanded community, Habermas assumes that consensus on

underlying norms within a shared ethos is not possible, and so he focuses on

rebuilding a consensus on the basis of establishing an impartial point of view. He

assumes that the initial impulse to engage in deliberation and work out a shared

73 Ibid. p.37.74 Ibid. p.30.

58

58

ethical self-understanding is doomed to fail in competitive conceptions of the good.

He proposes that it is possible to “proceed on the assumption that the participants do

not wish to resolve their conflicts through violence, or even compromise, but through

communication.”75 Habermas appears to claim that this assumption is neutral and

does not disclose the prior acceptance of an ethical value-choice. In the absence of a

substantive agreement on particular norms, Habermas proposes that each

participant may choose to rely on common interests found within the act of

cooperative communication which disclose shared presuppositions of reciprocal

recognition. He claims that agreements on the procedural form of argumentation are

easier to achieve than a consensus on particular substantive norms due to the

generalizability of the interests involved. “It stands to reason that people with

competing value orientations who take part in a process of argumentation will more

easily reach agreement on a common course of action if they can have recourse to

more abstract points of view that are neutral with respect to the content at issue.”76

The acceptability of discourse ethics is considered likely because the presuppositions

are necessary for rational argumentation. The rules reflect the common interests of

everyone engaged in cooperative argumentation. The rules themselves are not

justified but rather they are the product of identifying unavoidable presuppositions of

rational argumentation that all competent agents must use to participate in discourse

that aims at persuasion through the force of the better argument. According to

Habermas, agreements based on the rules of discourse ethics are the best method

for pluralistic societies to reach consensus over differences related to questions of

value and the good life.

Discourse Ethics: the Rules of Argumentation

75 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. see p.39.76 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. italics mine. p.75.

59

59

“…we engage in argumentation with the intention of convincing one another of the

validity claims that proponents raise for their statements and are ready to defend

against opponents. The practice of argumentation sets in motion a cooperative

competition for the better argument where the orientation to the goal of a

communicatively reached agreement unites the participants from the outset.”77

Habermas’ theory of communicative action and discourse ethics attempts to

establish the preconditions for rational inquiry in the form of cooperative

(communicative) principles rather than arguing in favour of any particular

deliberative action, total vision, or unified system. The cooperative principles are

seen as procedural preconditions for the legitimization of moral norms that may

additionally be applied in legal and political contexts. Procedural norms claim validity

or reliability on the basis of representing unavoidable aspects of argumentation that

correspond to argumentative competencies that agents use when engaged in

dialogue. They are modeled on a pattern inherent in the use of language oriented

toward reaching mutual understandings.78 By relying on these rules, a full hearing of

the interests and value-orientations of everyone can be accomplished and moral

norms are constructed and justified on the basis of being accepted within this

reflective process. The rules are considered regulative ideas that discourse can strive

to approximate. They provide a structure for argumentation that takes the shape of

an idealized form of uncoerced reciprocity in the cooperative search for the better

argument on the part of a potentially unlimited communication community.

As a process of reaching a shared understanding, argumentation can formalize rule-

governed interaction designed to ensure that all concerned take part freely and

equally. Normative validity, and in a sense moral worth, is viewed as a product of the

potential of a norm to be accepted within a consensus that respects discourse ethics.

77 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. (italics original) pp.43-44.78 Ibid. p.163.

60

60

It requires a reflective form of communication that seeks to establish moral norms for

well-ordered interpersonal relations motivated by the unforced force of the better

argument, “Participants in argumentation cannot avoid the presupposition that,

owing to certain characteristics that require formal description, the structure of their

communication rules out all external or internal coercion other than the force of the

better argument and thereby also neutralizes all motives other than that of the

cooperative search for truth.”79 Although the rules can be ignored, Habermas argues

that the act of entering into a good faith search for the truth presupposes the

speaker’s acceptance of general and unavoidable cooperative rules that operate at

the procedural level of his moral theory. The most important procedural standards

being,80

relevant contributions are not excluded,

all participants have an equal opportunity for contribution,

the participants do not lie,

and the communication is free from internal and external coercion in order

to ensure that contestable validity claims are motivated primarily by the

force of the better argument.

The rules of discourse ethics are viewed as inescapable universal preconditions

necessary to establish an ideal speech community that is free of repression and

argumentative inequality. The main presuppositions of rational argumentation

include the right to participate and the right of reciprocal assertion, but also, good

79 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. pp.88-9.80 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.44.

61

61

faith communication, domination free communication, and the principle of

universalization. Within this set of rules for argumentation only the principle of

universalization is considered to be a “moral principle” that contributes to the logic of

practical discourse.81 These rules assist participants in reaching a shared

understanding on issues of normative rightness. As a collection of procedural rules,

they operate as metanorms in a discursive procedure that gives equal weight to the

interests and evaluative orientations of everybody. Habermas justifies the necessity

of a transition to a fully symmetrical and inclusive communicative relation with others

on the basis that participants in argumentation are already engaged in a cooperative

rational discourse that presupposes the use of such rules.82 “If there is no authority

for relations of moral recognition higher than the good will and insight of those who

come to a shared agreement concerning the rules that are to govern their living

together, then the standard for judging these rules must be derived exclusively from

the situation in which participants seek to convince one another of their beliefs and

proposals. By entering into a cooperative communicative practice, they already

tacitly accept the condition of symmetrical or equal consideration for everyone’s

interest.”83 The problem is, of course, what to do with those who choose not to

cooperate but prefer to use a strategic influence within an inclusive dialogue for their

exclusive benefit.

The rule of unlimited participation raises the issue of what to do with people who

refuse to adopt cooperative discourse rules and in particular those who refuse to be

motivated by anything other than self-interest. The evaluation of motives is the

source of Kant’s explanation of good will and moral worth. Habermas claims

categorical validity for norms established within the confines of discourse ethics,

which indicates that a norm would have to be determined free of contingent

81 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. pp.93.82 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. pp.40-41.83 Ibid. (Italics original)p.24.

62

62

reasoning. He argues that an ideal discourse exchange forces participants to reject

egocentric positions that advocate one’s own interests in favour of considering the

interests of all concerned free of contingent motivations because participants are

constrained by the rules of discourse ethics: “A discursive agreement depends

simultaneously on the nonsubstitutable “yes” or “no” responses of each individual

and on overcoming the egocentric perspective, something that all participants are

constrained to do by an argumentative practice designed to produce agreement of

an epistemic kind.”84 Within the logic of this form of argumentation, moral validity

rests within a tension that requires participants respect individual “yes” or “no”

agreements and the need to constrain everyone to overcome an egocentric

perspective. Habermas’ conception of normative justification is grounded in a

speculative use of the imagination that considers the potential for a universal

consensus within a limited community of people who suspend strategic actions, a

utopian anticipation. The community is restricted to “rational” agents whose

rationality is defined by an agreement to adopt the rules pragmatically presupposed

in communicative action. However, a participant is either free to determine their own

mind without constraints or they are not. Strict adherence to the rule of unlimited

participation guarantees the inclusion of the self-interested perspective because

some people would refuse to operate from any other perspective and consider the

interests of everyone. They would prefer to limit consideration of interests to

particular in-groups while ignoring the interests of particular out-groups. Habermas

claims that normative justification can both respect individual opinions and require

everyone to abandon seeking personal advantages. These choices are, however,

somewhat mutually exclusive. For this idea to succeed, the choice would have to be

within an ideal process of moral reasoning, similar to Kant’s monological process, or

exclude real life participants who refuse to genuinely consider the interests of

everyone.

84 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.35.

63

63

The construction of an ideal speech community, however, should not be confused

with factual real-life forums. Habermas sets out the ideal conditions of legitimacy for

discursive will-formation, a process structurally different from institutionally

regulated decision-making procedures and concrete forms of social organization. The

rules are anticipated counterfactually, not as absolute or real conditions, but as an

ideal form of communication and social interaction. This position can be contrasted

with real speech communities where discursive consensus formation occurs under

conditions of strategic self-assertion and exclusion. The rules of ideal discourse

conditions protect the right to participate and provide symmetrical rights of assertion

in order to limit the application of strategic rationality. Ideally, they act as a warrant

of rightness or fairness for further normative agreements. In the real world, the

validity of a consensus is to be viewed as credible if formed under conditions that

approach Habermas’ ideal speech community operating free of coercion and

deception. Habermas assumes that in the absence of coercion and deception nothing

could convince participants to accept a controversial norm except reasons that each

person finds acceptable.85 If argumentation occurs in bad faith, or it mimics

conditions of oppression in sexist or racist terms, the process of argumentation is

seen to have failed to achieve these basic cooperative agreements for all concerned.

Given this situation, it is possible to anticipate “yes” or “no” answers for people

subject to the application of a moral norm whether they participate or not, despite

the need for independent group advocacy and perspective sharing, and it would be

required to reject the “yes” or “no” contributions of those who refuse to act on the

basis of anything other than an ego-centric perspective not constrained by the

consideration of the interests of others in the context of claiming moral obligations

for other people.

85 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. see pp.44-5.

64

64

Transcendental-Pragmatics

The procedural norms of discourse ethics do not rely on a process of moral

justification. They are established on the basis of being unavoidable argumentative

competencies required of deliberating agents engaged in moral argumentation. The

discourse principles are not moral duties and rights but rather argumentative duties

and rights. Within this context, argumentation is conceived as a special form of rule-

governed interaction that involves a reflective form of action oriented toward

reaching a shared understanding. Transcendental pragmatic claims assert that

discourse principles are not the result of social conventions or personal choice, nor

are they conclusions drawn from a deductive proof, rather they are unavoidable

presuppositions of reasoning that must be used if one intends to argue at all.

According to Habermas, “if one is to argue at all, there are no substitutes. The fact

that there are no alternatives to these rules of argumentation is what is being

proved; the rules themselves are not being justified.”86 The general idea is that public

argumentation makes use of normative rules, such as the inclusion of relevant

contributions and symmetrical rights of assertion, and these rules operate as

inescapable presuppositions of rational argumentation whose relevance cannot be

disputed without pragmatic self-contradiction. A pragmatic self-contradiction

identifies an inconsistency between the act of assertion and the asserted proposition.

For example, it is a contradiction to assert, “I am lying right now” or “I may exclude

relevant contributions in the context of a cooperative search for the better

argument.” The inconsistency between the act of assertion about the use of the rule

at the same time as the pragmatic observance of the rule undermines the claim

made in the assertion. The rules of discourse ethics are not justified in an ultimate

sense but merely shown to be unavoidable on the basis that any attempt to deny or

repudiate the “minimal logic” of the presupposition entails a mistake or performative

86 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.95. italics original.

65

65

contradiction because to contest a presupposition requires its use and no other

alternatives are available.87 Habermas argues that there are no alternatives to the

rules because of their general nature, “Strictly speaking, arguments cannot be called

transcendental unless they deal with discourses, or the corresponding competences,

so general that it is impossible to replace them by functional equivalents…”88 From

this one may conclude that the presuppositions of cooperative discourse are

necessary and universal in order to establish a framework for argumentation that

aims at achieving a domination free consensus. The rules represent the

argumentative competencies of participants at the reflective hypothetical post-

conventional stage of moral reasoning.

Although open and fair procedural rules are an important part of a decision-making

process they do not act as an absolute warrant of impartiality as concerns the

disposition of participants in a real discourse. The exercise of ideal role taking may

improve understanding of the different consequences for different groups in the

adoption of a norm, but people often listen to and ignore submissions of dissenting

voices on a regular basis within democratic forums. They simply do not share the

same interests and do not agree. Habermas’ conception is open to the objection that

the process could be manipulated to produce outcomes that favour a dominant or

privileged group, or that attempts to implement discourse ethics by way of a formal

procedure could lead to arbitrary outcomes and terror. Although it may represent the

best method available for the determination of moral norms, it cannot prevent the

possibility of a factual consensus as a product of structural domination. Of course this

objection can be countered by providing a criteria for consensus, as Habermas has

done, that distinguishes between a “rational” consensus and irrational or fallacious

consensus. Can the consensus stand the test of ideal speech conditions? In the words

87 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.83 and 95.88 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.83.

66

66

of Albrecht Wellmer, “to claim that a consensus is rational indeed means to assume

that it rests upon insight (upon the force of arguments) and not upon deception, self-

deception, manipulation, or internalized repression; nonetheless, we can never

achieve more than a factual consensus.”89 In other words, the rules of discourse

ethics represent necessary conditions for the validity of moral norms, are

hypothetical in nature, and are not sufficient to guarantee that individuals involved

will refrain from strategic action or that biased individuals or groups will not affect

the outcome.

The transcendental pragmatic argument is difficult to counter. However, even if

attempts to dispute the rules involve performative contradictions, claims of rule

neutrality and qualifications necessary to achieve conditions of moral obligation can

be questioned. Habermas claims that the rules are necessary and unavoidable

aspects of communicative practices however, they all share one thing in common.

They are the product of an agreement to search for mutual understandings within a

cooperative discourse. Habermas states, “the practice of argumentation sets in

motion a cooperative competition for the better argument where the orientation to

the goal of a communicatively reached agreement unites the participants from the

outset.”90 This prior agreement does not share the condition of being unavoidable in

the context of a dispute. Communication can be avoided if a person chooses to

promote a norm through the direct application of force or through other strategic

means. If successful, a party could effectively establish an outcome without

argumentation or acceptance of the better argument. Although obvious, this

demonstrates that the rules are only unavoidable in the context of cooperative forms

of argumentation. This suggests that the presuppositions of communicative action

are the result of the prior acceptance of an agreement to resolve differences through

89 Benhabib, Seyla & Dallmayr Fred. The Communicative Ethics Controversy. (M.I.T. Press, 3rd. 1995) 1990 p.293.90 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. (italics original) pp.43-44.

67

67

the force of the better argument rather than through the direct application of force or

other strategic means. This prior agreement to resolve conflict through

argumentation and the force of the better argument establishes a general end or

purpose for argumentation that is by no means unavoidable within the larger context

of action in general. When a person adopts this general end the rules of discourse

become necessary and are hypothetical in form. For example, if one agrees to

resolve conflict through cooperative argumentation then excluding relevant

contributions results in a performative contradiction. If a person changes the goal of

communication and chooses to have someone believe something is true, whether it

is or not, then excluding relevant contributions would be “unavoidable” and

“necessary” given the hypothetical form of logic in operation. The acceptance of an

end of communication that requires the rules under the hypothetical condition of

necessity only adds credibility to the result, it does not guarantee moral obligation.

The decision to resolve disputes through communicative action limits claims of

normative rightness to the force of arguments that voluntarily use the rules of

discourse. The prior acceptance of a limiting condition or end in the resolution of

disputes manifests itself in the criteria set out in the principle of universalization, the

conditions of acceptability and the requirement of a domination free discourse. It is

also reflected in Habermas’ distinction between communicative action and strategic

action, between cooperation and manipulation. Habermas asserts that his arguments

rely on the assumption that participants want to resolve disputes through

argumentation rather than force. This assumption is synonymous with a prior

agreement to settle conflicts by the force of the better argument and to not opt out

of rational discussion by relying on the direct application of force, material incentives,

or sanctions. It should be apparent that if a participant opts for strategic action they

are in fact rejecting the rational end of argumentation, in effect suspending the rules

until such time as they agree to join the discourse in good faith. The fact that the

68

68

rules are contingent on the prior acceptance of an end suggests that moral reasoning

and claims of obligations as set out by modern discourse theories are subservient to

hypothetical propositions such as: “If I agree to cooperate and resolve arguments

through the force of the better argument then I ought to obey the rules of discourse

ethics.” The hypothetical nature of this proposition demonstrates the qualification

that necessity is the result of the prior acceptance of the end of argumentation, i.e.,

the rules are unavoidable only if one has already decided to use them. Prior to that

decision they are not unavoidable, but merely a potential choice between strategic

actions and cooperative actions, between actions directed for success and actions

directed toward mutual understanding. The role of good will in making this decision

should not be overlooked and it is a bit of a puzzle how one should attempt to claim

categorical or moral validity for norms that are the result of hypothetical rules

motivated by the desire to resolve a dispute.

The prior decision to use the rules introduces a value choice that is not justifiable in

any absolute sense, but neither is the decision to resolve argumentation in a

cooperative manner arbitrary. The “force of the better argument” is a better method

of resolving disputes because it provides greater reliability for outcomes, is credible

as the best we have, or is capable of grounding an epistemic truth. Habermas

suggests that communicative action is the best way to convince someone of

something with some certainty while strategic action merely attempts to talk

someone into believing something is true and is not very reliable. He also suggests

that in the long run strategic action discredits participants and results in alienation

and solitude. Whether justifiable beyond pragmatic considerations or not, the

distinction demonstrates that discourse rules are not neutral or value-free but are

hypothetical deductions of a prior value-choice. This value-choice or value-premise is

demonstrated by the constraints imposed by discourse ethics, it prejudges the range

of variation for moral norms and limits dispute resolution to communicative practices.

69

69

This value-choice is perhaps the primary distinction to be made. Whether you believe

these choices constrain moral norms to forms of non-violent, non-strategic

cooperation or not, the conclusion of this argument contradicts the position that the

rules of discourse are neutral insofar as they limit forms of dispute resolution within a

norm setting discourse. The fact that these procedural standards are logical

entailments of a consensus to cooperate highlights the relevance of arguments that

seek to convince participants that communicative forms of action are better than

strategic forms of action as an approach to conflict resolution. It hopefully establishes

that the general agreement to cooperate has a special place in moral reasoning

because that agreement operates as a necessary pre-condition for the justification of

other norms.

The Justification of Substantive Norms

The shift to an intersubjective context and the rules of argumentation result in the

determination of a “common will.” The formation of a common will results in binding

substantive norms that are linked to the rationality of the procedure and the capacity

of a norm to be universally accepted. The presuppositions of communicative action

act as rational criteria to establish ideal discourse conditions that rely on the “force of

the better argument” to further communicative goals. Substantive or moral norms

claim validity or reliability when a consensus is constructed through reciprocal

consideration of the consequences of adopting a norm for all affected parties. The

analysis of consequences can be contrasted with Kant’s approach that claims

conformity to unconditional motivations and categorical validity. Although an analysis

of consequences is introduced, Habermas maintains that conditional interests are

avoided in the motivation of acceptance of a norm when participants in public

argumentation apply the principle of universalization, itself the product of

hypothetical reasoning.

70

70

Habermas observes that it is often impossible to reach a consensus on moral

questions due to a plurality of ultimate value orientations that ground divergent

perspectives. He asserts that it is “impossible to force agreement on theoretical and

moral-practical issues either by means of deduction or on the basis of empirical

evidence.”91 He points out that studies on the logic of moral argumentation end up

proposing a moral principle or rule of argumentation that acts as a bridging principle

between general hypotheses and particular observations helping to create a

consensus between divergent views. He claims that philosophers choose a moral

principle that is always a derivative of Kant’s basic insight represented by the

categorical imperative. However, under assumptions of social and ideological

pluralism, Habermas argues that application of Kant’s categorical imperative requires

a reformulation. What is needed is a transcendental consciousness or a universally

valid view of the world that considers the implications of adopting a norm from the

perspective of each individual. Impartiality is achieved through the involvement of a

plurality of participants in public argumentation who collectively attempt to persuade

and convince each other that adoption of a proposed norm is in the equal interest of

all or equally good for all concerned.92

The “moral point of view” as articulated by Habermas discourages Kant’s

monological approach to making moral judgments in favour of a public analysis that

focuses on the conditions of communication in order to ensure that all interested

parties test the acceptability of a norm through an analysis of consequences. Some

philosophers reject outright the possibility of consensus through a process of

argumentation and persuasion that relies on the weight of the better argument. In

the words of Richard Posner, “when the stakes are high, emotion engaged,

91 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983.(italics original) p.63.92 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.71.

71

71

information sparse, criteria contested, and expertise untrustworthy – a pretty good

description of the democratic process – people do not simply yield to the weight of

the argument, especially argument derived from the abstractions of moral or political

theory.”93 One reason for divergent views over moral norms and their application is

that they conflict in the same manner as ethical evaluative differences that appeal to

separate worldviews for “epistemic” truth. The only difference is that rather than

contesting divergent views of particular interests rooted in consideration of questions

of what is good for me (or us), divergent views are contested over the generalized

interests of all concerned. Of interest is the observation that an assertion of a

generalizable interest, or what is in the “equal interests of all,” can contain a

contestable value claim leading to problems that are similar to those encountered in

the consideration of particular ethical interests. If this were not the case, Kant’s

method of moral justification would produce unanimous consensus through the

application of the categorical imperative. It is because such a task produces

disagreement that cognitive moral philosophers like Habermas are forced to admit

that any maxim of moral action is potentially fallible. A consensus grounded in an

ideal role exchange is the best method devised to overcome this problem but it

cannot achieve Kant’s claim to construct an objective “fact of reason” and settle,

once and for all, questions of normative rightness. The justification of the rules of

discourse ethics, including the principle of universalization, are a notable exception

to the problems of dissensus because they are based on common and unavoidable

interests that must be asserted if one is to engage in cooperative argumentation at

all.

The Principle of Universalization

93 Posner, R.A..The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory. (Harvard University Press, 1999) paperback ed. 2002. p.104.

72

72

Within the moral sphere of deliberation, the principle of universalization provides the

conditions for the worth of a moral norm. The issue is whether everyone could will

that a contested norm should gain binding force under given conditions.94 The

principle of universalization excludes contested norms that could not meet with the

qualified assent of all who are or might be affected by it. The principle is considered a

necessary (presupposed) rule contained within the rational structures of

argumentation. Similar to Kant’s originating perspective, each participant is

considered a co-legislator of a norm. However, each co-legislator is asked to adopt

the moral point of view and consider whether a controversial norm is acceptable from

the point of view of each participant, “a law is valid in the moral sense when it could

be accepted by everybody from the perspective of each individual.”95 In other words,

each participant has to consider the contributions of others in a cooperative

discourse that strives to clarify a common interest in order to reach a communicative

agreement. Instead of binding others to maxims that each can will monologically

without contradiction to become a universal law, individuals must submit their

suggestion for a universal maxim to the scrutiny of others to see if everyone can

agree that such a maxim can be a universal norm. The difference for Habermas

involves incorporating the perspective of a participant who contributes to an

argument in opposition to adopting a point of view where the philosopher sees

himself as deriving an inevitable theoretical outcome. Such a reformulation

presupposes cooperative argumentation and reciprocal relations where each person

can defend their view and judge for themselves what is in his or her best interest,

while remaining open to criticism from others. On this basis Habermas reformulates

Kant’s categorical imperative in the principle of universalization: “(U) - A norm is valid

when the foreseeable consequences and side effects of its general observance for

94 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. p.204.95 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.31.

73

73

the interests and value-orientations of each individual could be jointly accepted by all

concerned without coersion.”96

The principle of universalization equates the validity of a moral norm with the

potential of a norm to be jointly accepted by all concerned. The use of “could be”

discloses an intention that moral reasoning should rely on a consideration of the

potential for universal acceptability rather than on the basis of actual acceptance.

Toward an analysis of acceptability, the first step is to select norms and principles of

action that represent generalizable or common interests of the participants. If a norm

is generalized to the point of representing a truly universal interest, it is more likely

to achieve a consensus. Habermas argues that “true impartiality pertains only to that

standpoint from which one can generalize precisely those norms that can count on

universal assent because they perceptibly embody an interest common to all

affected. It is these norms that deserve intersubjective recognition.”97 This

understanding is important because the selection of norms based on their

generalizability narrows the scope of moral reasoning into a search for interests that

we all share in common rather than establishing, as Kant attempted, a conceptual

standard from which one could derive rules for all forms of conduct.

The second step in assessing acceptability is to consider whether a norm could be

jointly accepted based on consideration of the foreseeable consequences for the

interests and value orientations of all concerned. What should be evident is that such

a formula introduces an analysis based on the assessment of pragmatic interests and

ethical values. This undermines Kant’s conception of moral worth because it

introduces the consideration of interests that may motivate the will and form the

basis of a claim of hypothetical necessity in the determination of a norm. The

96 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. italics original p.42.97 Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983. (italics added). p.65.

74

74

principle of universalization can be contrasted with Kant’s reasoning where

consideration of interests is entirely avoided under the guise of categorical validity

and unconditional motives. The modern approach is necessary if one rejects the

possibility of unconditional motives and realizes that reasoning must incorporate

empirical interests represented in a consequential analysis in the determination of

what is morally right. The inclusion of an analysis of foreseeable consequences as a

condition of justification is an improvement on Kant’s formulation because it

highlights the potential for limited interests to result in costs to third parties. The

principle of universalization requires discourse and consultation with others in order

to determine if there are foreseeable costs to the interests and value-orientations of

participants in the observation of a norm, a process that Kant would consider not part

of the moral point of view as it introduces motivations attached to empirical interests

and material incentives. One advantage of this formulation is that it does not equate

equal treatment with equal outcomes and makes the search for consequences, which

may be different for particular groups, a priority. The disadvantage is that moral

norms must be uncontroversial to be accepted, consensus is based on the lowest

common denominator, or acceptance of the least offensive norms to the interests of

participants. Under such conditions, acceptability is a product of weighing the costs

involved to protect the interests represented by potential candidates for a norm.

The principle of universalization incorporates a standard of self-interest insofar as it

rejects norms based on an assessment of costs to the interests and value-

orientations of everyone. If the observance of a moral norm resulted in a harm or

created unacceptable advantage or disadvantage for a particular group it would be

rejected by at least some of the participants because of its impact on their self-

defined interests, unless the difference was acceptable, for example, on grounds of

accommodating a special need or compensating a historical injustice. There may be

some conceptual overlap between the idea of acceptable differences and the idea

75

75

that a norm should not result in harm, but the main insight is that the condition

rejects harmful outcomes or disadvantages as defined by the participants

themselves. In the context of a universal consensus, even one participant could

reject a proposed norm on the basis of undue hardship in relation to their personal

interests or value-orientations and diminish the acceptability of a norm. This

indicates that the condition of acceptability incorporates a standard of self-interest in

the determination of norms that operates to reject unacceptable costs.

Although Habermas indicates that issues of application are separate from issues of

justification and require an additional competence of reflective prudence, the

construction of a conception of acceptability based on foreseeable consequences

links the acceptance of norms by participants with corresponding practices and

therefore incorporates issues of application. Issues of application are tied to the

principle of universalization insofar as participants must examine corresponding

practices in order to make an informed decision. Acceptance may therefore be

conditional on a particular expression or application of a norm. Identical interests that

result in identical consequences may be acceptable, however most norms will have

to consider the different costs to different groups and accommodations required to

compensate differences with different rules of application. According to Habermas,

this type of agreement cannot be avoided because, “moral universalism must not

take into account the aspect of equality – the fact that persons as such are equal to

all other persons – at the expense of the aspect of individuality – the fact that as

individuals they are at the same time absolutely different from all others. The equal

respect for everyone else demanded by a moral universalism sensitive to difference

thus takes the form of a nonleveling and nonappropriating inclusion of the other in

his otherness.”98 In the situation of a general or particular interest not shared by

everyone a balance must be achieved between protecting the interests of particular

98 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.40. italics original.

76

76

groups that result in acceptable costs to others and protecting identical interests

common to everyone. Considerations of this nature are tied into Habermas’

conception of normative validity to the extent that they provide content to the search

for what is in the “equal” interests of everyone.

Moral norms and principles tested by the principle of universalization are transformed

into a binding normativity through the agreement of all concerned. The agreement of

all concerned recognizes or presupposes the fallibility of deliberating subjects who

convince one another of the worth of a moral norm and the freedom of self-

legislating subjects who agree to adopt the norm.99 The position is in contrast to any

conception that appeals to ultimate justifications that claim unerring knowledge not

subject to fallibility. Habermas claims that a system of internal controls, rooted in

self-government, is required to follow the convictions established by principled moral

judgments. He argues that the weak motivating force of moral reasons is a product of

the initial separation or decontextualization of moral issues from questions of the

good life, and should be supplemented by coercive positive law. Like Kant, Habermas

recognizes that we may agree on actions that are morally right but be inclined to act

otherwise anyway.

Part III: Some Aspects of Moral Reasoning in Habermas

Shared Interests

There are at least two different kinds of universal agreements contained within the

idea of “common” interests that form the domain of moral norms concerned with

establishing outcomes. Agreements based on the identification of identical interests,

shared in common, and universal agreements formed through recognition of a

99 Ibid. p.36.

77

77

“common will.” These two conceptually distinct ideas involve the identification of

recognizable generalized interests that approach being universal on the basis of

sharing the same motivational condition or protecting diverse interests not

universally shared but common to a collective will bound to abstract principles of

practical reason. In the first case, consideration of what is equally good for all limits

norms to those that agree with specific identical conditional interests of everyone the

same. The second case unifies a common understanding based on recognition of

differences, wherein participants organize around a general interest to protect the

needs and interests of all people that are not the same. Moral reasoning in the

second case involves consideration of multiple interests held by some but not all

participants to a greater or lesser degree unified under abstract principles of

reciprocity and equality. In both cases, positive or negative conditional interests may

align with self-interest for at least some of the participants if not for all of them.

The first type of universal agreement is based on interests common to everyone

because they involve the identification of the same interest for everyone. This

creates a problem from the perspective of moral worth as articulated by Kant

because it is aligned in every case with the self-interest of every person. Each person

has an interest in the observation of a norm that protects the interest in question,

whether the norm takes the form of a positive personal entitlement or a negative

expectation relating to the behaviour of others. Kant considered the performance of

moral duties that were opposed to self-interest as opportunities to demonstrate the

greater moral worth of a duty. It is much more difficult to know when an action may

be motivated by duty or motivated by self-interest when both the duty and the

interest coincide in the same action. In fact, whenever an agreement to observe a

norm and a personal interest coincide or whenever an agreement provides a benefit

to the decision maker, it is easy to suspect the influence of self-interest on the will.

However, the moral aspect of deliberation as outlined by Habermas does not avoid

78

78

motivations of a conditional nature, as Kant would have it, rather it embraces

conditional interests common to everyone. Abstract reflection and the process of

generalization may aid in the identification of shared interests, however, a contingent

interest in a proposition does not transcend its original context on the basis of an

agreement that we all share the same conditional interest in common. It is more

likely that unconditional motives remain unknowable in any particular manner and in

all events are incomprehensible because they do not correspond to a reasonable

explanation of the direct or indirect motivation.

The second type of interest involved by definition includes a motivation to protect the

interest of some participants that is not equally shared by all concerned. In this

situation, a “common will” forms despite the lack of identical interests. The abstract

consideration of shared interests in this situation compares various conditional and

contingent interests that remain factually linked to concrete motivational situations

for acceptance under particular discourse conditions. The act of comparison, and the

generalizable formulation may not be sufficient to claim transformation of the actual

nature and content of each individual contribution. Such a consensus may be based

on a combination of diverse general interests that do not share the same condition

under consideration because the interests at stake are not identical. The consensus

that can result is represented by an interest that intends to assist others, often

viewed as the protection of a minority interests not shared by everyone in the form of

a special accommodation for a particular group. According to Habermas, interests not

equally shared by everyone make it more difficult to reach a universal consensus. His

introduction of a moral point of view attempts to offset this problem by including an

examination of self-interest that denies norm candidacy if interests represented by

the norms are not general enough to pass conditions that support universal

agreements. Agreements based on a common will afford a greater opportunity to

demonstrate other than self-directed selfish decision-making and actions that meet

79

79

Kant’s standard of moral worth, whether motivated by representations of direct or

indirect interest when the interest at stake does not disclose a benefit for the

participant. The person without a direct interest contributes to a consensus despite

not sharing a benefit in the construction of a norm. The motivation is other-directed

and is designed to help others or at least not harm others in a norm setting

discourse.

The determination of a “common will” that demonstrates an interest in assisting

others is more likely to involve an absence of self-interest for at least some

participants who do not share the interest at stake. Moral reasoning that attempts to

avoid harming the interests of others involves the recognition of contingent interests

and motivations that are either aligned with self-interest or a mature consideration of

the interests of others. Neither approach is free from motivations of subjective self-

interest for at least some of the participants. For example, in a large norm setting

discourse an agreement to assist people in distress may involve the consent of

individuals who do not require assistance themselves. In such a case, there is no

identical interest to motivate agreement, however, there may be a “common will” to

help those in need of assistance. Those who do not have an interest in assistance

may agree to adopt the norm because they believe it is the right thing to do, or

because they are dedicated to conditions of equality and reciprocity. The participants

in this situation collectively agree on a common will despite not sharing the same

conditional motivation because of an adherence to principled action and ideas that

govern diverse conditions. Although Kant would restrict moral worth to actions

motivated exclusively by duty (because it is the right thing to do) modern

participants who rely on a consequential analysis would prefer to have a reason

beyond a categorical assertion that this action is acceptable to those who possess a

good will, i.e. it does not harm the interests of other people.

80

80

Motivations

Moral reasoning that attempts to avoid harming the interests of others is likely to

create the perception of an absence of self-interest because the principled behaviour

requires no action other than a refusal to accept a normative proposition. Claims of

normative rightness that remain may involve consideration of conditional interests

similar to the identification of common interests because discursive forms of moral

deliberation require an analysis of consequences and attached conditions. If a person

is motivated by self-interest, then action cannot properly be said to be moral. This

could be the case if the condition was motivated by the perception of prestige or

other material rewards. If a person is motivated to not accept norms that harm other-

directed interests because of a mature consideration of the interests of others, then

action reflects a lack of self-interest coupled to a disinterested perspective for norms

that support others because the person does not perceive self-interest to be at stake.

The acceptability of a norm under conditions of disinterest describes a weak

motivational category insofar as the participant does not put forward any effort to

support or deny a norm when the interests at stake are not vested against personal

self-interest. The motivation in this category can be criticized as not being intuitively

moral even though it would pass the standard of the principle of universalization

insofar as a person refuses to harm the interests of other people. Identical common

interests that represent motivations that are the same for everyone can also result in

a disinterested perspective that is different insofar as it represents positive interests

and conditions.

Moral action best demonstrated against personal self-interest, as Kant would have it,

may not meet the conditions of the principle of universalization. This motivation

results in the sacrifice of self-interest for the benefit of others. Such an interest is

properly described as altruistic. It fails to act on the basis of self-interest and prefers

81

81

to act on the basis of promoting the interests of others. It is not the case that there

exists no interest in the motivation affecting the will, rather the person making the

determination has an interest in assisting other people within a special generalized

case of moral deliberation that results in the sacrifice of personal benefit to protect

the interests of others. The specific interest being protected belongs to a second

party. It can be noted that the interest represented by the desire to assist others has

the full potential of incorporating many if not all interests attached to other people if

one permitted moral norms that include the voluntarily sacrifice of self-benefit for

other people from the first person perspective. Such an interest willed without

contradiction or to the standards of the principle of universalization would include a

calculation to balance the interests of some with the interest of many and limit itself

to results that do not harm third parties, or in the formulation of Habermas, only

interests that could jointly be accepted by all concerned in a practical discourse.

Conditional Interests

As previously indicated, the two approaches toward universal agreement outlined

above present problems for moral reasoning associated with motivations. Both Kant

and Habermas claim that moral obligations are the product of emancipating the will

from conditional or contingent motivations and it this claim of an obligation that

requires examination. If unconditional motivations cannot be found to exist within

discursive forms of validation then claims of moral obligations are suspect and

alternative theoretical justifications are necessary to describe the actual process of

legitimate norm use and claims of “moral” universal validity. As set out by the

principle of universalization, self-interest is used to deny the acceptance of moral

norms. Therefore conditional interests are obviously linked to the process of

justification insofar as they are part of a motivation to reject norms or interests they

represent. From this perspective, the entire moral project can be viewed as the

82

82

application of a few moral standards that test and reject incompatible conditional

interests and a description of what remains. When conditional interests are tested

and rejected there are no claims of normative rightness to contest on the basis of

unconditional motivations because the process does not result in a positive norm or

claims of universal validity. In a situation where personal self-interest is aligned with

the acceptance of a positive norm, its acceptance does not necessarily rely on a

motivation of rational self-interest if it is grounded in consideration of the subjective

interests of other people. According to modern moral theory, when shared interests

are aligned with self-interest, the process of considering the interests and value-

orientations of everyone and the selection of norms tested by a public discourse

nullifies, if you will, either at the individual level or at the level of a collective

decision, the self-interested motivation. The search for shared interests, however, is

open to the critique that self-interest remains the actual motivation because it is still

aligned with the resulting consensus. At issue in this process is whether a process of

consensus formation and claims of universal consensus of an interest “generalized”

to the point of being common is sufficient to achieve categorical validity on the basis

of being an unconditional demand not motivated by the consideration of a conditional

interest.

The argument to consider is whether practical universal consensus procedures that

produce outcomes based on shared interests can actually exclude self-interest and

contingent motivations and if not, whether alternatives of hypothetical reasoning are

sufficient to maintain claims of universal validity and moral worth given claims that

such norms exist and are shared universally in common. A plausible alternative

explanation of what operates within discursive forms of justification that claim moral

status beyond the assertion that it is possible to nullify the self-interested motivation

through the general consideration of the interests of everyone is the acceptance of

norms on the basis of a universal common interest. But not even this solution

83

83

escapes the use of conditional interests, it merely generalizes the conditional interest

or motivation under consideration within a collective forum of universal acceptability

or advantage. The individual interest may avoid being disclosed through the process

of generalization, however, discursive forms of justification require participants to

provide a consequential analysis of the content of the agreement in each case. At

best, the demand to include conditions of impartial reflection on what is in the equal

interest of everyone avoids a motivation that aims to establish unequal advantages

or costs on different groups. The net effect is to maintain Kant’s basic intuition to

ground moral worth in the absence of self-interest, however, in the context of an

intersubjective process that theoretically does not exclude anyone, claims to

constrain participants to abandon self-interest are suspect, particularly if one

considers the freedom of self-legislating subjects. It further difficult to argue that

individual self-interest is entirely avoided when one additionally considers that any

shared norm by definition is aligned with self-interest, albeit an interest common to

everyone. Given the condition of an all-inclusive dialogue universal acceptance only

increases the likelihood of conditional interests being what motivates the acceptance

of a norm in anything other than an abstract theoretical process within a limited

version of an ideal role exchange.

This is not to claim however, that intersubjective forms of deliberation that rely on

the expression of conditional interests that operate to support or deny a claim of

universal validity do not disclose motivational reasons. If normative rightness is

viewed as a product of ideal discourse conditions and the potential for a universal

consensus then the search for shared interests within an intersubjective process may

provide grounds for consensus linked to consideration of consequences. A

consequential analysis, as set out by Habermas, incorporates the identification of a

motivation that is accepted because of a shared interest, or rejected because of

unacceptable costs for particular groups. In the case of denying acceptance, respect

84

84

for the conditional interests of those who are burdened by resulting costs creates

non-consensus, while in the case of a shared common interest, what is acceptable is

the protection of a conditional interest, whether described in the hypothetical or

categorical form, as represented by specific or generalized proposed norms. It is

difficult to deny the role of conditional interests in the application of the principle of

universalization if it is acknowledged that the process of norm selection entirely

intends to rely on motivations of acceptance rooted in a consequential analysis of

conditions that conform to generalized interests that are shared by everyone or

denied because of unacceptable costs associated with other than universally

acceptable conditions.

In the case of a collective “will”, it is difficult to assign the description of a motivation

because motivations are normally the property of individuals. The motivation of a

collective decision does not have the same properties as an individual decision, at

best one could describe the various individual reasons or motivations of all individual

participants who support a collective decision in such a description. In the case of

individuals, moral theory is forced to argue that motivations of self-interest are

avoided if the process is designed to prevent unequal advantages or harms from

occurring to the interests and value-orientations of each participant. In this manner,

subjective or contingent interests that aim at a specific advantage or avoid a

particular cost not shared by everyone are discounted and what remains attempts to

represent universal interests shared in common by everyone. The result claims a

transcendent motivation that avoids self-interest because it is acceptable to a

theoretical universal collective rather than a limited interest group. This analysis only

denies personal motivation and ascribes to the resulting norm a motivation of an

unconditional nature because all members of the group are capable of achieving

consensus based on conditions that may or may not actually represent the factual

motivation of intersubjective claims. Kant explains this potential nonconforming

85

85

correspondence to a collective result as an absence of good will, while Habermas

attributes this failing to the non-inclusion of discourse standards that create an

impartial perspective and adhere to principles of acceptance that level out harms to

other people. If Habermas did not argue in favour of subsequent claims of moral

obligation subject to a factual motivational analysis linked to Kant’s groundwork,

claims of normative rightness could be upheld on the basis of the standards he

advocates while failing, and properly so, the conditions necessary to ascribe moral

worth to participants within a collective decision. Such a framework minus claims of

obligation mirror Kant’s objective analysis of universal validity and the potential for

acceptance of “moral” propositions.

Categorical and Hypothetical Relations

Categorical forms of logic were presented by Kant as a distinction between

theoretical and practical claims of validity. For Kant, theoretical cognitions express

what “is” while practical cognitions express what “ought” to be in terms of

acceptability, given conditions of a good will. Empirical judgments represent what is

actually real and are different from practical judgments that correspond to moral

validity regardless of experience and are independent of the judgment and

perception of participants. The main transition from Kant’s explanation that includes

objective moral commands and the more modern approach of defining the criteria of

intersubjective acceptability is to argue the difference between theoretical

assumptions that moral propositions are found by the mind rather than made in the

mind of all rational agents. This distinction is sufficient to map the transition from

categorical forms of validity that contain objective claims of impartiality to

intersubjective forms of validity that contain claims of categorical status based on

something less than objective recognition. Claims of categorical validity and moral

obligation that reject claims of “objectivity” may, however, demonstrate incompatible

86

86

theoretical claims within intersubjective forms of justification. The rest of this paper

will consider the possibility of such a position based on what I perceive to be the

failing of modern intersubjective moral reasoning to achieve claims of moral

obligation due to the unavoidable disclosure and use of pre-conditional and

conditional interests within abstract reasoning processes that claim validity based on

a consequential analysis designed to produce motivations of acceptability through

the application of criteria linked to hypothetical forms of reasoning. To argue the

reasonableness of such a claim, I would point out that rejection of claims of

objectivity may entail a transition that requires a theoretical shift from categorical

forms of reasoning to hypothetical forms of reasoning in every case, and that such an

observation may pre-exist within Kant’s own conception. In other words, discursive

forms of justification that use universal standards as criteria for acceptability may not

actually avoid the use of conditional interests as a motivation or an interest that

motivates the will, but rather they may incorporate conditional motivations at a

higher, more general level of abstraction and fail to meet categorical definitions of

validity.

For Kant, claims of necessity that correspond to ideas of pre-existing abstract

connections were considered objective because they were not dependent on

empirical grounds or observations and rooted in the same practical observation of

moral worth for every person. In this manner, Kant appears to construct the idea of a

moral principled domain with corresponding claims of moral necessity on nothing

more than the identification of pre-existing fixed abstract logical relationships of non-

empirical phenomena, such as a triangle must have its interior angles equal to two

right angles. The distinction between theoretical and practical operations of reason

allows Kant to express language that constructs the idea of a moral domain by

merely describing pre-existing fixed abstract connections based on an analogy to the

theoretical rules of geometry and mathematics within the faculty of practical reason.

87

87

Kant argued that pure reason could identify objective rules that would clarify the

motivational force of reason by rejecting motives grounded in the world of sense, and

accepting motives grounded on pure intellection, and that these rules were pre-

understood as fundamental unconditional laws known independent of empirical

observation. In other words, the mind itself was able to construct relational

equivalencies and through the process of non-contradiction achieve substance over

what was common to all persons the same and accepted given the presence of good

will. Grounding moral frameworks within an observational layer of abstract logic

attached to motivational frames of mind may leave one wondering about the abstract

descriptive language constructed for this project on the basis of a correspondence as

noteworthy as the workings of a geometrical shape. A redefinition of factual

processes that include the simplification of the workings of motivation forces may

lead to a more accurate reflection of universal abstract validity claims.

Categorical propositions were only concerned with the inclusion of the universal form,

without logical contradictions, and without conditional motivations. Categorical

expression excluded reference to the subjective material condition of the action

resulting in something different than hypothetical relations because they failed to

disclose an intermediate condition in a relationship of premise and conclusion.

Categorical judgments claimed unconditional status and were recognized by a good

will in the form of a universal law that was impartial. If however, the focus of moral

rightness is on the criteria of acceptability rather than motivation, then self-

interested motivations would combine with a mature consideration of the interests of

others and form the basis of a universal consensus. The mix of heteronomous and

categorical conditions would appear to provide a greater potential for universal

consensus if found to be unavoidable in a pragmatic dialogical consensus framework

given the description of conditions of acceptance for normative reasoning without

claims of unconditional validity and moral obligation. This theoretical stance is

88

88

rejected by Habermas, who argues that the inclusion of self-interest would fail to

achieve moral obligation and remain within the domain of argumentation that

supports rational self-interest as expressed by social contract theory. He advocates

for the selection process of generalization to narrow norm candidacy as a substitute

process in the context of a competition to reduce norm conflict and achieve moral

validity. The rules used to achieve validity are themselves the product of hypothetical

forms of necessity that claim moral obligation as the result of achieving universal

agreements. Kant rejects hypothetical forms of reasoning for moral propositions

altogether because of the relationship between subject and predicate. Hypothetical

forms disclose specific conditional examples, while categorical forms avoid

conditional references and claim universal validity by looking at all examples of

premise and conclusion to test for a universal truth condition without contradiction or

reference to hypothetical forms of reasoning. For Kant, reference to a hypothetical

condition that disclose specific examples are not objective and cannot form the basis

of a universal rule acceptable to everyone. The hypothetical form ruins the idea of an

unconditional good will not influenced by subjective conditions and is therefore

rejected because it references a concrete empirical condition.

To critique Kant based on his own reasoning, the difference between hypothetical

and categorical forms of logic within inert theoretical expressions are not the same if

the context is changed and they are viewed within a practical sphere of motivational

action. The difference between the heteronomous and autonomous will in Kant was

depicted as the difference between motivations attached to hypothetical conditions

and a categorical perspective of objectivity. An autonomous will that binds itself to

practical reason in favour of impartial motivations on the basis of reciprocity and

equality is grounded in abstract insight similar to the necessity of recognizing that

two right angles must equal the interior degrees of a triangle, while hypothetical

forms of reason are linked to heteronomous motivations that disclose a condition as

89

89

part of a logical expression in the form of the end of an action or purpose. Forms of

motivation described by the idea of heteronomy intend to achieve a result through

consideration of the condition and include a motivation attached to the subjective

condition, while categorical propositions do not contain references to empirical

conditions as a basis of moral obligation. The proposition is understood without

purpose or reference to an end other than the performance of the action directly and

does not contain intermediate conditions. Kant argued that this avoids the logical

intention of a motivation given by an attachment to a condition on the part of a

participant who is considering an action. An analysis of motivation within categorical

forms of validity is open, however, to the criticism that although hypothetical

conditions are not disclosed by reference to a necessary instrumental connection of

action, that such conditions exist anyway, and are unavoidable, even if not disclosed,

given the possibility of the full expression of the categorical proposition and

subsequent logical entailments attached to intellectual preference for principles of

reciprocity and equality. Within the context of discursive forms of validation, moral

justifications cannot avoid the obligation to include conditional subjective disclosures

given the need to perform an impartial consequential analysis as set out by the

operation of the principle of universalization.

Moral Reasoning

Although there are many aspects of Kant’s reasoning that Habermas does not

incorporate, he adopts the theoretical distinction made by Kant between the

heteronomous and autonomous will to ground moral obligation. The exclusion of

references to the material conditions of an action and its intended result defines an

autonomous will in an unconditional manner and binds the will to practical reason so

that it may adopt maxims of action on the basis of insight. The exercise of rational

autonomy purged on contingent subjective motivations as a result of practical reason

90

90

binds the will to an impartial perspective leading to obligations viewed as

unconditional demands that are categorically valid. Habermas claims that the

inclusion of a standard that compares pre-existing pragmatic interests and context-

dependent value-orientations of an ethical nature frees the will of heteronomy and

achieves a context-independent reflection on what is equally in the interests of

everyone. Heteronomy, however, may not be avoided, if subjective conditions

contained within a consequential analysis operate to influence the will or if limiting

conditions disclosed by the rules of norm candidacy presuppose the end of a

hypothetical relation that manifests itself in the conditions of acceptance for all

derivate moral propositions.

Given this approach to understanding intersubjective forms of validity, descriptions of

practical reason that avoid such a conclusion are necessary to maintain claims of

moral obligation. If discursive forms of obligation intend to include reference to

subjective conditions and discourse rules, moral reasoning needs to distinguish itself

from non-moral contextual situations that result in agreement but not moral

obligation. Models of contractual obligation in social contract theory avoid moral

obligations because they are motivated by conditional interests and selfish

considerations rather than universal abstract standards that reject contingent

interests. Negotiating a balance between conflicting rational interests that cannot be

universalized is a different motivational process distinct from agreements supported

by shared or common interests. Theories of moral obligation require an abstract and

mature consideration of the interests and value-orientations of all concerned to avoid

contradictions rooted in subjective motivations, self-love or individual interest-based

rationality. Self-love cannot be the foundation of a moral obligation because it is

linked to empirical conditions and motivated by the satisfaction of a desire rather

than conformity to abstract principles of universal non-contradiction or the adherence

to acceptability criteria linked to a moral standard of impartiality.

91

91

Subjective Contexts

The moral point of view claims to avoid specific or particular values attached to pre-

existing ethical contexts in deference to context-independent motivations that are

without subjective preferences or motivations. Habermas argues that moral

reasoning is an exercise of abstract reflexivity not bound by specific contextual

origins. Ethical contexts involve evaluations of the good life in relation to identities

and value-orientations held by specific communities. Habermas claims unconditional

or categorical validity is achieved when motivations for the self-legislation of norms

and corresponding obligations are denied recourse to subjective contexts for

justification by way of conformity to the application of moral standards to avoid self-

interest and corresponding contingent motivations. The denial of subjective contexts

within the justificatory procedure of adopting norms is similar to Kant’s objective

approach that operates within ethical contexts. The difference between claiming

objectivity and denying subjectivity in moral theory creates a division between

propositions that remain within ethical first person considerations of moral worth

linked to the presence of good will and the denial of subjective conditions within

moral propositions through the application of intersubjective forms of impartiality

that consider the interests of all people. The differences, however, do not necessarily

transform the remaining motivation into a true example of unconditional categorical

validity, they merely act as a warrant of rightness for claims of a subjective nature.

The motivation may remain under the influence of acceptable subjective motivations

unless the standard operates as a motivation on the will. The inclusion of dialogical

standards of impartiality operate to aid in the comparison of competing

intersubjective claims in order to replace the idea of objective laws that are suspect

of fallible monological pronouncements of categorical validity often rooted at source

in ethical first person contextual situations. The standards actually displace reliance

92

92

on a motivational analysis within moral theory so long as the result is controlled or

influenced by motivations of people who implement universal and impartial

standards under conditions of group discourse. Open to criticisms of moral

paternalism, the denial of subjective conditions substitutes personal, ethical or

pragmatic motivations with standards constructed by the cooperative subjective

motivations of other people who support abstract universalism.

Given an understanding of this overarching principled process, it can be argued that

generalized interests viewed may represent a link to an evaluative choice within an

ethical context, even if the value has multiple sources of origin and is generalizable

to the point of being a shared common interest in each specific case. The prior

acceptance of a presupposed end to resolve conflict through communicative action

and a review of the consequences of adopting a norm may limit moral reasoning to a

subjective context in every situation. Habermas claims that moral reasoning is a

context-independent process that avoids pre-existing pragmatic interests, which

ground self-interest, and context-dependent value-orientations of an ethical nature,

which ground contingent interests, “there seems to be no way around the

explanation of the moral point of view in terms of a procedure that claims to be

context-independent.”100 Determinations of moral rightness within this context,

however, may not avoid subjective evaluations that lead to hypothetical conditions

despite the introduction of the moral point of view. The moral context in this situation

is viewed as a special extension or higher order of pragmatic and ethical spheres of

deliberation within a concrete boundary to achieve the status description of being

universal in the abstract. This contextual category is merely the transcendent

application of ethical “epistemic” determinations that clarify what is worth striving

toward but it does not change the motivational contextual situation of maxims of

action and other propositions that cannot escape being viewed in the “concrete.” A

100 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.99.

93

93

concrete interest is attached to a person with an actual history, identity, and

affective-emotional constitution.101

Theoretical assumptions of modern moral theory remain free of conditional

motivations and claim categorical validity on the basis of intersubjective forms of

validity that reference ethical contexts and contingent motivations. The decision to

avoid strategic actions and motivations may not avoid subjective contexts and claim

categorical validity if they cannot be separated from the decision of a subjective

precondition. These claims can be reassessed in the context of the question of

whether it is possible for moral reasoning to lose specific value-orientations within a

process of argumentation and generalization given a plurality of participants, the

existence of pre-conditional assumptions, and the obligation to examine logical

entailments and interests. According to Habermas, the acceptability of norms is a

product of abstract moral procedures that recognize the value of generalization. On

this topic, Habermas writes, “only generalizable value-orientations, which all

participants (and all those affected) can accept with good reasons as appropriate for

regulating the subject matter at hand, and which can thereby acquire binding

normative force, pass the threshold. An “interest” can be described as a “value-

orientation” when it is shared by other members of a community in similar situations.

Thus an interest only deserves consideration from the moral point of view once it is

stripped of its intrinsic relation to a first person perspective. Once it is translated into

an intersubjectively shared evaluative vocabulary, it is no longer tied to contingent

desires and preferences and can achieve, as a candidate for value-generalization in

moral justification, the epistemic status of an argument. What enters discourse as a

desire or preference survives the generalization test only under the description of a

101 Benhabib, Seyla. The Generalized and the Concrete Other : The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Moral Theory in Kittay, E. and Meyers, D. (eds.), Women and Moral Theory. New Jersey : Rowan and Littlefield, 1987.p.164.

94

94

value that appears to be generally acceptable to all participants as a basis for

regulating the relevant matter.”102

It cannot be denied that the process of generalization is useful to resolve conflicts

between various groups by identifying underlying shared universal interests,

however, the process of generalization acts to postpone expressions of consequential

interests that may motivate acceptance and observance of a norm and subsequently

fail to achieve categorical validity given that acceptability may, in every condition

under consideration, be limited to generalized interests that operate in subjective

contexts to avoid strategic action. Whether the moral point of view is actually part of

a context-independent procedure or actually just part of an context-dependent

approval process that seeks to increase potential acceptance of norms by

incorporating generalized subjective conditions that are the same for everyone is to

decide whether the idea of an ideal role exchange is capable of transcending

motivations linked to conditional being. It can be argued that such an illusion does

not transcend subjective contexts and conditional motivations because the

presupposed end of resolving conflict that is used to derive the hypothetical

necessity of the moral point of view operates to contradict the idea of a context-

independent process. The decision to accept the presupposed end to resolve conflict

through the force of the better argument rather than strategic forms of motivation is

itself demonstrative of a subjective value-choice to resolve conflicts of norm

competition through cooperative discourse rules and derivative propositions of rule

governed behaviour that require accounting for the interests of others, avoiding

negative outcomes, and criteria for norm selection.

The selection process of generalization operates in the same manner as a good will

to select norms that are capable of achieving universal approval. The selection

102 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. pp.81-82. italics original.

95

95

process that includes generalization is a useful bridge for overcoming conflict based

on specific representations of subjective values, as espoused by Habermas, however,

the process of weighing the probability of universal consensus and the formal

introduction of understanding the acceptability of a consequential analysis would of

necessity include specific expressions of conditional interests leading to a further

hypothetical proposition insofar as acceptability is a product of limits that protect the

interests of others. The principle of universalization, itself the product of hypothetical

necessity and the logic of avoiding pragmatic performative contradictions, requires

an analysis of consequential conditions and interests. If the limits are properly

understood, every example of a generalized norm may fail to avoid hypothetical

forms of necessity and conditions of a pure motivation required by the autonomous

will of every individual as defined by Kant and supported by Habermas. The inclusion

of pre-conditional and subsequent conditional interests in moral reasoning could be

expected to motivate acceptance or non-acceptance of a norm within a hypothetical

framework of acceptability, a situation that would void categorical forms of

unconditional validity according to Kant.

It can be argued that the condition of a morally good will produced by the

renunciation all interests and actions motivated exclusively by recognition of a

universal duty shared and acceptable to all people is not the same proposition as the

deselection of negative consequences and the identification of remaining conditional

motivations of common interests, vetted by conditions of impartiality whether given

full consideration or not. Although the explication of criteria for intersubjective

acceptability may not reference claims of unconditional validity, being limited by the

operation of a previous hypothetical deduction, the omission to provide moral

judgment with a consequential analysis may be the only theoretical means to avoid

hypothetical forms of conditional reasoning. Actions based on not enough

information, or done from ignorance, or non-consideration of empirical motivations

96

96

would appear to be suitable candidates for Kantian categorical validity but not qualify

under the modern rules of discourse ethics.

The secondary derivation of cooperative forms of behaviour that follow from the force

of hypothetical reason to avoid logical performative contradictions should not be

confused with the idea of a primary decision to resolve conflict or the means by

which to do so. The decision to avoid logical performative contradictions is the result

of pragmatic logic and a desire for performative competency or a desire to obey rules

of agreement, while the decision to resolve conflict within a process of norm selection

is a decision potentially rooted in the subjective value-orientations of particular

communities. What is claimed as a transcendental moral property, the context-

independent process of intersubjective moral reasoning, is really nothing more than

the expression of a primary ethical preference to avoid strategic action if one accepts

that resolving conflict through rule-governed interaction is a subjective context-

dependent process, albeit shared by most people.

Limits of the Moral Context

The operation of forming a consensus based on generalizable interests may not avoid

an evaluation or value-choice within a pragmatic or ethical concrete context despite

being generalized to the point of being less objectionable. This would involve

accepting that subjective common interests of others are conditional in form and

there is no other alternative ground of justification or motivation available after the

rejection of selfish motivations. Just because the generalizable test claims to avoid a

subjective motivation through the operation and denial of self-interest of the person

making the determination does not necessarily entail avoiding the insight that all

grounds of acceptability within an ideal role exchange may contain conditional

motives in relation to the consideration of the interests of others. Habermas states

97

97

that hearing the interests and value-orientations of all concerned results in a context-

independent motivation that is not a preference but the result of reasoned conviction

and generalizable insight rather than a mature preference motivated by an analysis

of conditional interests. Habermas is forced to argue in favour of a context-

independent process in order to be able to ground claims of moral obligation and

categorical validity. To achieve this claim, contingent values are either not involved

in the motivation of an agreement or they do not retain their conditional status when

considered from an abstract perspective that considers the interests of all concerned

in a context-independent manner.

Habermas would prefer to distinguish between the determination of value within

ethical contexts and the determination of norms within a moral context and claim

that the construction of values and norms are distinct processes. It can be argued,

however, that the incorporation of discourse ethics within a norm setting discourse

relies on the inclusion of at least one ethical value choice insofar as cooperation is a

necessary precondition to achieve a reliable result expressed by reciprocal rules of

argumentation. The decision to adopt an ethical value choice as a precondition to the

determination of acceptable norms serves to limit the scope of moral reasoning. Such

a limit can be viewed as the inclusion of an ethical value within a framework that

claims value neutrality. The second observation of such a claim, as noted earlier, is

that despite the transition to a search for shared norms, the consideration of the

interests of everyone does not transcend subjective value determinations, it merely

generalizes subjective values in an attempt to compare them with the general values

of everyone in the hope of reaching a universal consensus. What remains of Kant’s

construction of the autonomous will is a claim to refrain from indulging in certain

motivations based on self-interest or personal preference. The application of the all-

inclusive context to moral reasoning may result in a method of privileging questions

of justice over questions of the good, however it does not support the claim to

98

98

establish unconditional norms or principles. Rather it amounts to little more than

asking people to enlarge their ethical perspectives through consideration of the

generalizable and particular interests of others to the point of recognizing and acting

on either shared common interests or motivations linked to the recognizable and

exclusive interests of other people.

If norms based on shared interests cannot avoid being motivated by conditional or

contingent interests then they disclose necessary forms of hypothetical reasoning.

The hypothetical proposition is not transformed into a categorical proposition when

considered in the context of all rational agents. It is still based on conditional reasons

despite the idea that they apply to everyone. Hypothetical propositions take the

following form: I ought to do “x” if I want to achieve “y”. In the abstract context of

moral reasoning and normative justification the hypothetical proposition is: I ought to

accept norm “x” if I want achieve common interest “y” and everyone agrees that “y”

is equally good for everyone. “Y” within my argument is a common interest accepted

as a conditional reason for acting within the universal sphere of moral deliberation,

its standards as such, but without claims of unconditional validity or moral obligation.

Within this framework, a shared perspective and the identification of common

interests does not transcend the conditional nature of particular subjective interests,

it merely introduces the requirement that interests relied on must be disclosed and

that everyone agrees the interest could be common to everyone. The deliberative

practice restricts consideration of interests to those shared in common and rejects

conflicting interests that result in unacceptable inequality. At best, the moral point of

view defines a specialized universal subset of pragmatic and ethical evaluations

acceptable to everyone because they are shared by everyone.

Absence of Self-Interest

99

99

To save what is left of the notion of an unconditional motivation is to search for

motivations that are not grounded in self-interest. The collective determination of

what is equally in the interests of everyone may avoid self-interest if it were based

exclusively on the desire to protect the common interests of others. Such an

approach avoids self-interest but it does not avoid the use of conditional interests

because representations of common interests are viewed from a consequential

perspective. The desire to protect the common interests of others would have to

exclude the interests of the person making the determination and accept the

conditional interests of others as the exclusive motivation for agreement. Kant

considered his impartial perspective to result in motivations attached to universal

obligations and benefits that were identical for each person without attachment to

conditional motivations or interests. Given the modern treatment of his claims, this

form of deliberative practice relies on the consideration of the equal interests of all

concerned and limits interests to those we all share, either equally, or collectively but

it does escape from the presence and use of conditional and contingent interests

within a motivational perspective. Impartiality viewed in this manner identifies a

limited set of subjective motivations purged of advantages or disadvantages for

particular groups and does not claim to establish unconditional demands or

categorical forms of validity.

The claim for the existence of unconditional motivations, not tied to any interests at

all, is rejected as incomprehensible. An interest represents a conditional reason for

acting. If one rejects Kant’s argument of categorical validity and requires a

conditional reason to understand consensus formation then justification of moral

reason will always be linked to the interests of someone and be in the hypothetical

form. In all cases, the will is determined either by an interest attached to the

decision-maker or an interest attached to someone else, or a mix of both. Without

going beyond this limit as a factual explanation of the potential for universal

100

100

agreements, these two sets of interests exhaust the potential grounds for motivation

of an agreement that seeks to take into consideration the interests of everyone. If a

norm failed to represent the interests of someone, there would be no point in

constructing the norm, although I suppose a norm could be constructed in the total

absence of interests, only that no one would likely support it. In every case of

intersubjective agreement the will is either determined by personal interests, the

interests of others, or a mix of both, but not the total absence of conditional interests

altogether. This suggests that self-interest can be avoided in moral deliberation by

agreeing to support the interests of other people, however, because such a task still

represents motivations linked to conditional interests one cannot establish

categorical validity.

In summary, Kant and Habermas conceive of two different standards for moral action

rooted in practical reason or practical deliberation. Kant’s standard can be

summarized as a test that rules out maxims of action based on contradiction with the

categorical imperative. It amounts to a process of reasoning that asks, what if

everyone did that? You should not do this or that action because if everyone did it

would result in a performative contradiction. You should not give lying promises

because if everyone gave lying promises then contract law would break down, or you

should not give incorrect change because if everyone gave incorrect change then

commerce would break down. This standard makes an assumption that we already

know what is good, it is what everyone could will without contradiction. You should

respect your parents because if everyone respected their parents it would be good

and not result in unequal advantages. It creates a set of moral propositions that

provide equal obligations for everyone. Habermas on the other hand, uses a different

standard to determine moral conduct. His standard amounts to a do no harm

principle. You should not give incorrect change because it would harm the interest of

others. You should not give lying promises because it would induce contracts, which

101

101

once breached, would harm others. This standard is accomplished through an

examination of the potential harms and a test of consent based on the assumption

that no one would agree to something that would harm their interests.

The main difference between the two standards is what I will call the high and low

watermark of morality, a positive versus a negative test. Kant established the highest

standard, it reaches for the best in people. We should support all actions that are

good. The only problem is that different people in different cultures hold different

opinions on what is good, on what everyone ought to do. Habermas’ standard tries to

deal with this objection, but as a result he has to water down the standard somewhat,

or use a negative test. It is not the case that we should support what is good because

our conception of what is good may be fallible, so instead we should at least not

harm others. This test creates a set of norms and corresponding obligations that are

the result of reasoned convictions established through discourse that at a minimum

do not harm the interests or value-orientations of others. The only problem is that

such a standard introduces a value choice insofar as it justifies the prior acceptance

of reciprocal rules of argumentation that include an ethical choice to resolve conflict

through argumentation and norms of equal application. These rules are a necessary

modification on moral reasoning because when one accepts a standard that rejects

harmful outcomes one must first be able to listen to others in order to determine

what the harms may be.

Intersubjective and Categorical Validity

If moral reasoning is the product of the consideration of contingent reasoning and

motivations linked to the subjective interests of the self or others, then claims of

achieving categorical validity or unconditional validity within an intersubjective

context must be reconsidered. Categorical validity, as established by Kant,

102

102

presupposes the prior recognition of what is good which modern moral reasoning

explains as the acceptance of cooperative forms of norm recognition and resolution.

Kant posits that we already know what is moral and what is not and merely have to

cast it in a universal form to avoid conditional interests, test our beliefs, and establish

a universal obligation. He advocates that we ought to perform an action for the sake

of an action and not for a mediating inclination or desire, the action is motivated by

the end itself. Intersubjective forms of reasoning demonstrate a model of moral

reasoning that suggest the acceptance of a precondition that acts as a mediating

inclination or desire that may void categorical forms of validity. The invention of

considering the interests of everyone may not be sufficient to transcend subjective

contexts that consider the consequences of adopting norms and may fail achieve the

status of categorical validity within intersubjective processes as they remain linked to

preferences that set out conditions of acceptability despite aiming for the potential of

a universal consensus. Moral propositions cannot be a product of their potential for

intersubjective agreement, share categorical status, and disclose contingent reasons

within specific discourse conditions as a motivational influence on the will at the

same time. If such were the case, categorical validity claims would be the result of

consequential justification within intersubjective contextual agreements and result in

hypothetical forms of necessity and conditional motivation. The rules of justification

that operate on the basis of reciprocity and equality are not sufficient to ground

claims of moral obligation in an unconditional manner if consequential forms of

reasoning determine the result. Even if one accepts reciprocity and equality as the

justification for intersubjective validity then the reasons for adopting a norm will still

undermine claims of categorical validity, either through conditional motivations of

contingency or generalized interests that limit norms based on pre-existing

conditional interests, disclosed or not, within the decision to first operate on the basis

of intellectual ideas linked to subjective contexts that operate to resolve conflict in

the hypothetical form by rules inseparably linked to subsequent contingent

103

103

grounding. In these circumstances, categorical validity and intersubjective forms of

reasoning are mutually exclusive claims.

If one agrees that moral reasoning cannot escape from motivations based on

subjective contingent interests, whether they are attached to the person making the

determination or someone else, then shared interests fail to ground moral

obligations. Habermas refers to this objection, “…insofar as an actor only has rational

motives for preferring moral to premoral conditions, he undermines the obligatory

nature of the moral expectations whose categorical validity he should recognize

under these conditions…the moral language loses the illocutionary force of

unconditional demands as soon as participation in the moral language game is made

dependent on the decision of a rational chooser.”103 In other words, the introduction

of hypothetical forms of reason in the transition from ego-centric justification of

norms to a mature consideration of the interests of others fail to establish moral

obligations and unconditional demands because they require an absence of self-

interest in the collective determination of a norm. The acceptance of premoral

conditions however, operate to limit norm acceptability within an inclusive dialogue

that include subjective conditions of self-interest and probably cannot establish

categorically validity and claims of moral obligation because they are linked to

hypothetical forms of agreement despite that the moral point of view claims to

escape subjective self-interest because it is rooted in the mature consideration of the

interests of others.

Moral Worth

Kant and Habermas place a great deal of emphasis on the motivation for adopting a

norm or principle because they link unconditional motivations with moral obligations.

103 Habermas, Jurgen. Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T.) 1998. p.22.

104

104

However, if intersubjective agreements fail to establish motives free of conditional

interests because generalizable forms disclose consequential or pre-existing

conditional interests shared by everyone, then an alternative conception of moral

obligation is necessary and a redefinition of moral worth has yet to be established.

Such a task is beyond the scope of the present inquiry that restricted itself to an

analysis of what is currently a popular conception of moral reasoning, however I will

venture to sketch out some alternative possibilities for a conception of moral

obligation and moral worth within a less ambitious framework.

Moral worth, in the Kantian sense, cannot really be attached to norms on the basis of

their potential for universal agreement because such an analysis cannot avoid

motivations linked to contingent interests as a basis for universal acceptance. The

interests are aligned with self-interest for at least some of the participants. What

remains of Kant’s assessment of moral worth is the idea that it applies to motivations

entirely purged of self-interest. The only clear example of an action motivated by an

absence of self-interest, (after rejecting an unconditional interest) is an action done

exclusively for the protection of the interests of others. Norms that are motivated to

protect the interests of a particular group that involve a cost to other groups provide

the greatest opportunity to demonstrate moral worth of an action on the basis of

selflessness but are the least likely to be accepted for that very reason. On this basis

moral worth is product of providing assistance to others without the expectation of a

personal benefit. This proposition relies on an ethical rather than moral context for

justification. The claim of moral worth is merely an intuition that describes a standard

of judgment that may be applied within particular ethical circumstances. Personally, I

am persuaded that such a proposition is not mistaken because the inclusion of a

consequential analysis is an advance toward a universal agreement that relies on a

difference between actions motivated by self-interest and actions motivated by

considering the needs and interests of others. In general terms, cooperative

105

105

outcomes are better than competitive ones. When confronted with the choice to

normalize a generalizable interest that results in costs to some groups when given

particular expression, we can either attempt to equalize the interests of everyone

and obtain the same benefits and obligations or we can promote the interests of

others over our own interests. The only caveat to this simple description is that

promoting the interests of others still requires an analysis of the potential costs to

third parties in order to avoid establishing unacceptable advantages for others. This

approach suggests that the equalization of interests is not the sine qua non of

morality, it is the minimum standard. The highest moral standard is that of altruism.

Moral obligations can likely be attached to acts of altruism on the basis of duty and

consistency. If one agrees to adopt a norm then they undertake an obligation to be

consistent with that position. Once moral theory rejects the idea of objectively

necessary moral obligations, and accepts the idea that obligations exist only when

we agree to undertake them, what we are left with is the determination of value in

abstract and general contexts. The domain of morality loses some of its special

status as being an explanation of obligation and becomes merely a specialized

extension of ethical value determinations that contain integrity. What remains are

three distinct standards of judgment that may be applied in any particular case. The

motivations that are attached to these standards create distinctions between

claiming a value or interest for a particular group to which one belongs, claiming a

value or interest for all people, and claiming a value or interest for a particular group

to which one does not belong. These standards reflect different motivations that

determine the will to action and correspond roughly with stages of moral

development. The first category includes those who help themselves regardless of

the cost to others, the second category includes those who balance their personal

interests with what all may agree to be the identical interests of everyone and the

third category includes those who help others at a cost to themselves. The first

106

106

standard is based on absolute self-interest where a particular group is motivated by

an advantage they do not want to share with others. The second standard is based

on acceptance of abstract equality or impartiality grounded in equal obligations and

benefits that do not result in the advantage of one group over another. The third

standard is altruistic where a particular group sacrifices personal self-interest to

protect the interests of others, such as in war-time. The idea of moral worth is linked

to a rejection of the first standard in favour of the other two, however protecting the

interests of others without the expectation of personal benefit is the only clear

example of an action containing moral worth on the basis of being totally purged of

self-interest.

The use of these three standards in moral deliberation and recognition of the need to

approximate universal acceptability in the collective determination of moral norms

undermines claims of absolute moral obligation. Such a position is unsatisfying to

those who would want to justify some sense of necessary obligation rooted in

something more than a free choice or arbitrary preference. I do not think, however,

that because obligations rest on choices, these choices do not disclose the existence

of moral order. The initial choice of promoting cooperative methods in the

determination of norms is a foundational choice. I do not see anything objectionable

in making this determination and following further with a deductive chain of

statements. The initial choice can be grounded in pragmatic insights that suggest

that cooperation and a mature consideration of the interests of others promotes

better outcomes for all participants. The initial choice may be based on a decision or

a commitment but such a decision is rational insofar as it promotes the well-being of

the collective.

In its most general form, moral worth is the acceptance of caring, which if applied in

a moral context means caring for everyone. However, the acceptance of the

107

107

proposition does not result in binding moral obligations for everyone, it is an option.

The task of moral philosophy should be to persuade people to agree to adopt a moral

order that prefers to care, either because it can be justified on the basis of forming

better outcomes or because one already believes that caring is to be preferred. The

moral imperative is to communicate with others in order to promote good will and

harmony through the use and understanding of moral standards in particular

contexts and to reject selfish motives that lead to exclusive personal advantage.

Bibliography

Benhabib, Seyla. The Generalized and the Concrete Other. Kittay, E.F. and Meyers, D.T. (eds.), Women and Moral Theory. (New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield) 1987.

Benhabib, Seyla. On Reconciliation and Respect, Justice and the Good life. Philosophy & Social Criticism. Vol.23 no. 5 pp. 97-114 (Sage Publications, London) 1997.

Benhabib, Seyla & Dallmayr Fred. The Communicative Ethics Controversy. (M.I.T. Press, 3rd. 1995) 1990.

Duncan, A.R.C. Practical Reason and Morality. (Thomas Nelson Ltd. London) 1957.

Habermas, Jurgen. Legitimation Crisis. (M.I.T. Press, 1998) 1996.

Habermas, Jurgen. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. (M.I.T. Press 1990) 1983.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Inclusion of the Other. (M.I.T. Press, 1998) 1996.

Habermas, Jurgen. Theory and Practice. (Beacon Press, 1973) 1963.

Hare, R.M. Essays in Ethical Theory. (Oxford University Press) 1989.

Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Robert Paul Wolff. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Macmillan Publishing Co.) 1969.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. F. Max Muller (Anchor Books, NY) 1966.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck (Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey) 1993.

Kant, Immanuel. Logic. Trans. Robert Hartman & Wolfgang Schwarz (Dover NY 1988) 1974.

Paton, H.J.. The Categorical Imperative. (Hutchinson & Co. London, U.K.) 1947.

108

108

Posner, Richard, A. The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory. (Harvard University Press) 1999.

Rawls, John. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Ed. Barbara Herman. (Harvard University Press) 2000.

Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. (Columbia University Press) 1993.

Searle, John. Rationality in Action. (M.I.T. Press) 2001.

Wolff, Robert Paul. The Autonomy of Reason. (Harper & Row NY) 1971.

109

109