Habermas’ comprehensive Theory of Society

The five basic research programmes

A Brief Outline of Programmes 1 and 2

The function of speech is to elicit rational consensus.

‘reaching understanding inhabits human speech as its telos’ (TCA 1287). Validity =‘internal connection with reasons’ (TCA1: 9, 301).

There are three kinds of validity claim – to truth, to rightness, and to truthfulness.

Discourse:

Discourse arises with a challenge issued by the hearer to the speaker to make good her validity claim. There are three types of validity claim (truth, rightness and truthfulness) and three corresponding types of discourse, theoretical, moral and aesthetic.

Communicative rationality versus Instrumental and strategic rationality.

Instrumental and strategic actions are aimed at success, and at achieving success,

Success is achieved via a causal intervention the world.

Summary of The Theory of Communicative Rationality

Basic questions: What are the fundamental types of action? What is the difference between them? Which type is prior or more fundamental? In virtue of what?

Basic answers: There are two types of action: communicative action on the one hand, instrumental and strategic action on the other. The difference is that communicative actions aim at securing understanding and consensus, while instrumental and strategic actions aim at practical success. Communicative action is the more fundamental because it is self-standing; instrumental and strategic action are not.

3. The programme of social theory

Habermas’s Social Ontology
Communicative ActionInstrumental/Strategic Action
LifeworldSystem

e.g. family, public sphereMoney (economy) Power (state)

Basic questions: What are modern societies like? Of what are they made?

Basic answers: Modern societies are made up out of two kinds of social being – the lifeworld and the system. The lifeworld is the home of communication and discourse. The system is the home of instrumental and strategic actions.

Critical Social Theory

Basic questions: What is the underlying cause of the pathologies of modern social life?

Basic answers: Systems – markets and administrations – expand and colonize the lifeworld, the home of communicative action and discourse on which they themselves depend. People are forced into patterns of ecomically or administratively induced instrumental and strategic action, in spheres of what Habermas calls ‘norm free sociality’.

Conclusion: The lifeworld needs to be kept intact, and the ill-effects of systems intrusion into non-system domains, the marketisation of spheres of sociality that were formerly not market driven, must be mitigated.

4. The programme of discourse ethics

i) The discourse theory of morality

Habermas has a theory about the social function of morality.

The discourse principle (D), states that:

Only those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourse. (BFN 107)

The moral, principle (U) (for Universalisation)states:

(U) a norm is valid if and only if the foreseeable consequences and side effects of its general observance for the interests and value-orientations of each individual could be freely and jointly accepted by all affected. (TIO 42)

Basic questions: How is moral order possible? What makes an action morally right or wrong? How do we know, and how do we learn, what is right/wrong?

Basic answers: Moral order rests on the existence of demonstrably valid norms and the fact that most agents are disposed to adhere to them. What makes an action right/wrong is that it is permitted/prohibited by a valid moral norm. What makes a norm valid is that it demonstrably embodies a universal interest. We find out whether this is the case by testing candidate norms for their capacity to elicit rational agreement in moral discourse.

ii) ethics

Basic questions: What is distinctive about ethical as opposed to moral questions? What is the social and political significance of ethical questions?

Basic answers: Ethical discourse concerns questions of individual happiness and the good of communities. Ethical discourse involves critical appropriation of traditions and the interpretation of values.

5. The programme of political theory

1)Habermas’s Conception of Politics: The ‘Two-Track’ Structure of Politics

Formal sphere = institutional arenas of communication and discourse designed to take decisions, E.g. parliaments, cabinets, elected assemblies and political parties. N.B. not identicial with the state.

The informal political sphere = not institutionalised and not designed to take decisions e.g. ‘civil society’, voluntary organisations, political associations and the media etc..

ii.Human Rights and Popular Sovereignty

H’s conception of political community combines central ideas of liberal-democracy and civic republicanism.

liberal democracy and the idea of human rights,

civic republicanism on the idea of popular sovereignty.

a.Human Rights

Govt. must respect the rights of and the private autonomy of the individual.

b.Popular Sovereignty

Popular sovereignty is the idea that the political authority of the state resides ultimately in the will of the people.

c.The Equiprimordiality and Reciprocity of the Two Ideas

Habemras argues that human rights and popular sovereignty are equiprimordial and reciprocal, i.e., that neither comes first, and that each mutually depends on the other.

Politics is the expression of ‘the freedom that springs simultaneously from the subjectivity of the individual and the sovereignty of the people.’ (BFN 468)

Habermas denies three key liberal assumptions:

  • that rights belong to pre-political individuals;
  • that membership in the political community is valuable merely as a means to safeguard individual freedom;
  • that the state should remain neutral in respect of the justification of its policies or laws, where neutrality implies avoiding appeal to values and ethical considerations.

Habermas rejects three key civic republican assumptions:

  • that the state should embody the values of the political community
  • that participation in the community is the realisation of these values;
  • that subjective rights derive from and depend on the ethical self-understanding of the community

“Popular sovereignty is not embodied in a collective subject, or a body politic on the model of an assembly of all citizens, it resides in ‘“subjectless” forms of communication and discourse circulating through forums and legislative bodies.’ (BFN 136)

Formal political institutions must be open to open to the “input from below” so that their decisions, policies and laws will be tend to be rational and to find acceptance. This is where the system of rights comes in. Habermas argues that ‘the system of rights states the conditions under which the forms of communication necessary for the genesis of legitimate law can be legally institutionalised.’ (BFN 103)

2)Politics and the Form of Law

Between Facts and Norms, literally translated would be Facticity and Validity.

i.The Dual Structure of Law

A law is legitimate when it has a point, or when there are appreciable reasons for obeying it.

A law is positive when it is laid down or imposed by some lawmaker (and coercible when it can be).

Laws have a third feature too: they must be coercible.

A legal norm is valid only when all these components are present.

ii.The Legitimacy of Law

Habermas formulates his notion of legitimacy in the principle of democracy. The democratic principle states that:

Only those laws count as legitimate to which all members of the legal community can assent in a discursive process of legislation that has in turn been legally constituted. (BFN 110)

The democratic principle arises from the ‘interpenetration’ of principle (D) and the legal form.

According to (D), amenability to consensus is a mark of the validity of a norm. The mark of a norm’s legitimacy is this: Legitimate laws have to be able to win the assent of all members of the legal community, not as outcome of a rational discourse of all concerned, but of a legally constituted process of legislation. In other words, if all members of the legal community can assent to a norm that is produced by a formal decision-making body which incorporates deliberation and discourse, is open to input from civil society, and conforms with a legally instituted the system of rights, then the norm is legitimate.

i) The discourse theory of politics

Basic questions: How is a well-ordered political system possible? What makes laws, policies, and political decisions legitimate?

Basic answers: A well-ordered political system is one in which the right balance between private and public autonomy is achieved and in which political order is stabilized to a large degree by rational decisions produced by institutions that are sensitive to the informal public spheres of civil society. Laws are legitimate only if they are in tune with the opinions, values, and norms generated discursively in civil society.

ii) The discourse theory of law

Basic questions: What is a valid law? What is the role of valid legal norms?

Basic answers: A valid law is a law that is positive, enforceable, and legitimate. Legitimate laws must be consistent with moral, ethical, and pragmatic considerations and serve the good of the legal community. Valid legal norms authorize and implement political power. They support moral norms, help to harmonize individual action and to establish social order.

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