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On the Normative Structure of Action: Gewirth and Habermas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Stephen K. White
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Extract

Recently Alan Gewirth has attempted to establish a universally valid foundation for ethics and politics by means of analyzing the “normative structure” of action and what that necessarily entails for any agent. By “normative structure”he means that by virtue of which certain “evaluative and deontic judgments on the part of agents are logically implicit in all action” (pp. 25–26). These judgments, leading finally to a supreme moral principle, are part of what is “conceptually necessary” to being an agent. Anyone who resists making these judgments is guilty of “selfcontradiction” and thus a diminution of his claim to be a rational being (pp. 44, 48).

Although Gewirth considers his approach to be a novel one, it infact exhibits some interesting parallels with the approach of the German philosopher andsocial-political theorist, Jiirgen Habermas. The latter has not written a systematic work on what he calls “communicative ethics,” but he has laid out its basic components. As with Gewirth, the foundation of this ethics lies in a certain “normative force” implicit in action. While there are such similarities of approach between the two theorists, they differ in the specific analyses they offer of action and of what constitutes an agent's claim to rationality.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 282 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1982

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References

1 Gewirth, Alan, Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 48. In-text page references will be used hereafter for this workGoogle Scholar.

2 Habermas's, works will be abbreviated as follows: Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971)Google ScholarKHI; Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press; 1973)Google ScholarTP; Legitimation Crisis (Boston: BeaconPress, 1975)Google ScholarLC; Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979)Google Scholar CES; with Luhmann, Niklas, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971)Google ScholarTGS: Kultur und Kritik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974)Google ScholarKK; Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus(Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1976) ZRHM.Google Scholar

3 See LC, part 2, p. 89 and part 3; the essays in CES; TP, Introduction and chaps. 1 and 4; “Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence,” Inquiry 13 (1970), pp. 360CrossRefGoogle Scholar –75; “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz,” TGS;“Wahrheitstheorien,” in Wirklichkeit und Reflexion(Pfullingen: Neske, 1973); “Zwei Bemerkungen zum praktischen Diskurs,” ZRHM.Google Scholar

4 LC, p. 120.

5 Various egoist counterarguments have been made to earlier versions of Gewirth's thesis. In the book, he takes extensive pains to answer these and avoid others. Cf. pp. xii, fn. 2.

6 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971)Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Davies, Colin, “Egoism and Consistency,” Australian Journal of Philosophy, 1 (05 1975), 22–23Google Scholar.

8 Well-being, considered from this “generic-dispositional” view of the individual's general possibilities as a purposive agent, encompasses three kinds of goods according to Gewirth: “basic,” “nonsubtractive,” and “additive.” “The basic goods consist in the necessary preconditions of action. … The nonsubtractive goods … consist in the abilities and conditions required for maintaining one's level of goods and for retaining undiminished one's capabilities of action. … And the additive goods consist in the abilities and conditions required for improving one's level of goods and for increasing one's capabilities of action” (pp.58–59).

9 Gewirth agrees that a robber who thinks on prudential grounds that he ought to rob a bank is consistent in thinking that others ought not to interfere with his project. The only reason this train of thought is disallowed in Gewirth's argument is that it begins with a nongeneric good which is not necessary to agency as such.

10 “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen,” TGS, p. 119.

11 Feinberg, Joel, “The Nature and Value ofRights,” Journal of Value Inquiry, 4 (1970), 257CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For “legitimacy,” see Pitkin, Hannah, Wittgenstein and Justice (Berkeley, 1972)Google Scholar.

12 The ideas of freedom and purposiveness seem to me to be implied in what Habermas calls the “expectation of intentionality” (“Vorbereitende Bemerkungen,” TGS, pp. 118–19).

13 “Wahrheitstheorien,” pp. 240–57. “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen,” TGS, pp. 136–41; “Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence,” pp. 371–74.

14 LC, p. 108; cf. “Wahrheitstheorien,” p. 258, fn. 45.

15 LC, p. 108–17; “Legitimation Problems in the Modern State,” CES, p. 204.

16 “What Is Universal Pragmatics?,” CES, p. 64; “Zwei Bemerkungen,” ZRHM, p. 339.

17 For the opposite viewpoint, see Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York, 1977) pp. 99–100, 105Google Scholar.

18 LC, p. 110.

19 For a more extended treatment, see McCarthy, Thomas, The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), chap. 4Google Scholar.

20 “Zwei Bemerkungen,” ZRHM, pp. 340–41.

21 “What Is Universal Pragmatics?” CES, p. 2.

22 “Introduction,” TP, p. 18; “What Is Universal Pragmatics?” CES, pp. 2–3, 41–48; “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen,” TGS.

23 Cf. Mackie, , Ethics, pp. 98–99Google Scholar.

24 “Zwei Bemerkungen,” ZRHM, pp. 340–41; LC, p. 110, fn. 16; “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism,” CES, pp. 136–38.

25 For important critiques of Habermas on the naturalistic fallacy question, see: Apel, K.-O., “Sprechakttheorie und transzendentale Sprachpragmatik zur Frage ethischer Normen,” in Apel, , ed., Sprachpragmatik und Philosophic (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), pp. 121–22Google Scholar; and Kambartel, Friedrich, “Wie ist praktische Philosophic konstruktiv moglich?” in Kambartel, , ed., Praktische Philosophic und konstruktiv Wissenschaftstheorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974)Google Scholar.

26 For other arguments that communicative ethics is not empty, see my “Reason and Authority in Habermas: A Critique of the Critics,” American Political Science Review, 74 (12 1980), 1007–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 “Vorbereitende Bemerkungen,” TGS, pp. 136–39; “Wahrheitstheorien,” pp. 255–56.

28 KHI, p. 310.

29 “Wahrheitstheorien,” p. 256.

30 Rousseau, The Social Contract, bk. I, chap. 9.

31 This prescription is similar to Rawls's idea that inequalities can be justified only if chosen under conditions of initial equality.

32 White, , “Reason and Authority in Habermas,” pp. 1015–16Google Scholar.

33 Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. 13. Hart, H.L.A, The Concept of Law (London, 1961), chap. 9, esp. pp. 189–91Google Scholar; “Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals,” Harvard Law Review, 71 (1958), 622–23Google Scholar.

34 Hart, , “Positivism and the Separation of Lawand Morals,” p. 622Google Scholar.

35 Actually more than one step, since Habermas, unlike Hart, buildsan attack on the naturalistic fallacy from such an argument.

36 KHI, p. 314. I have altered the text only in leaving “Miindigkeit” untranslated.