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ETHICAL AGENCY IN MODERNITY

By

Nancy Ruth Crocker

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Philosophy

1991

ABSTRACT
ETHICAL AGENCY IN MODERNITY

By
Nancy Ruth Crocker

The motivating problem of the dissertation is modern ethical
skepticism. The problem of ethical skepticism is presented as it has been
articulated by Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre understands the problem in
terms of the interminability of ethical discourse. Ethical argumentation is
interminable because of the absence of consensus concerning norms.
Norms function as the premises in ethical arguments. Where consensus
on norms is absent, argument cannot proceed to a reasoned conclusion.
Consensus concerning norms is based on the sharing of coherent ethical
traditions and ways of life. This analysis suggests that the pluralism of
modernity is fatal to coherent ethical agency. The dissertation explores and
ultimately opposes the idea that a single, shared, coherent ethical tradition
is necessary for ethical agency.

The aim of the dissertation is to determine, at least in a general way,
what kind of community, institutions or institutional arrangements
within a community might provide the conditions for coherent modern
ethical agency. I pursue this aim through two levels of analysis: the
relationship between self and community, and the relationship between
practical rationality and historical conditions. After two initial chapters,
relevant work by Kant, MacIntyre, Hegel and Habermas is explored and
applied.

It is my conclusion that MacIntyre's initial insights are correct, but I

argue that Habermas provides a more consistent and compelling analysis

of both modernity and practical rationality. I rely on Habermas's notion of
the ideal speech situation as my model of the conditions which must
obtain in modernity if coherent ethical agency is to be realized.
Institutionalization of the ideal speech situation will not entail the
development of a new, worldwide substantive ethical community.
Instead, realization of the ideal speech situation will entail a society in
which multiple substantive ethical communities flourish, and a political
system functions which allows conflicts among communities to be
resolved in a way that can be accepted as legitimate by all. Realization of
the ideal speech situation is itself conditioned upon the real possibility that
all persons and all groups can participate effectively and equally in

discourse. This condition would require greater economic equality and a

wider scope for democracy than is currently practiced.

 

Copyright by
NANCY RUTH CROCKER
1991

To Jay

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
Contemporary Moral Skepticism ............................................................... 1
Self and Community .................................................................................... 6
Agency and Community ........................................................................................ 10
The Virtuous Self ........................................................................................ 10
The Autonomous Self ................................................................................ 12
The Moral Hero ........................................................................................... 14
The Emotivist Self ....................................................................................... 17
Two Examples .............................................................................................. 18
The Historical Rationalization of Valuation ........................................ 26
The Autonomous Self ............................................................................................ 32
Kant's Conception of Moral Agency ....................................................... 35
Concrete Agency and Ahistorical Subjectivity ...................................... 41
Respect for Others and Temporality ........................................................ 45
Kant's False Dichotomy ............................................................................. 47
Temporality, Imagination and Action .................................................... 49
The Rejection of Modernity .................................................................................. 54
The Narrative Self ....................................................................................... 56
The Self and Community .......................................................................... 6O
MacIntyre's Material Analysis .................................................................. 64
Traditional Society ...................................................................................... 71
Can We Return to a Pre-Modern Society? ............................................. 74
Is the Pre-Modern World the Only Condition for Moral
Agency? .......................................................................................................... 79
The Practical Syllogism or Rational Deliberation ................................ 81
Kant and MacIntyre on Difference ........................................................... 85
The Possibility of Ethical Agency in Modernity ................................................ 90
Abstract Right ............................................................................................... 91
Morality ....................................................................................................... 102
Ethical Life ................................................................................................... 107
Evaluation of Hegel's Solution .............................................................. 117
Communicative Rationality and Ethical Agency ........................................... 124
Summary of the Argument .................................................................... 124
Rationalization Process ............................................................................ 126
Theory of Communicative Rationality ................................................ 130
The Lifeworld ............................................................................................. 135

vi

The Theory of Colonization .................................................................... 139

The Ideal Speech Situation ...................................................................... 143
Community .................................................................................... 147
Problems and Questions .......................................................................... 150
Problems and Questions ...................................................................................... 153
Ethical Skepticism ..................................................................................... 153
First Objection
Empty Formalism .......................................................................... 155
Response to the Charge of Empty Formalism ......................... 156
Second Objection
The Problem of Institutional Realization ................................ 163
Counterinstitutions ...................................................................... 163
Pseudo-commonalities ................................................................. 169
Inadequacy of Counterinstitutions ............................................ 172
Marx and Habermas ...................................................................... 175
The Role of a Political Institution .............................................. 177
Third Objection
Disappearance of Normative Content ...................................... 178
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 180
Review of Chapters ................................................................................... 180
Chapter One - Introduction ......................................................... 180
Chapter Two - Agency and Community .................................. 182
Chapter Three - The Autonomous Self .................................... 185
Chapter Four - The Rejection of Modernity ............................ 187
Chapter Five - The Possibility of Ethical Agency in
Modernity ........................................................................................ 189
Chapter Six - Communicative Rationality and
Ethical Agency ................................................................................ 190
Chapter Seven - Problems and Questions ................................ 192
Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 194

vii

Introduction

Contemporary Moral Skepticism

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that contemporary moral skepticism is the
result of the repudiation of the moral tradition of the virtues in conjunction
with the failure of Kant and other Enlightenment thinkers to successfully
discover "new rational secular foundations for morality."1 He combines his
claims about contemporary moral skepticism with a description and diagnosis
of what it is to be a person specifically in the modern world. This
combination powerfully demonstrates that ethical action in the modern
world is problematic. We must act, but we lack a coherent framework of
ethical principles and traditions which might guide our action. His analysis
of contemporary "ethical" agents reveals the interconnections among the
notions of selfhood, community and rational ethics. Although MacIntyre is
critical of Kant's efforts to provide a foundation for ethics, he articulates his

own view of right action in Kantian terms.

For Kant - and a parallel point could be made about many earlier
moral philosophers - the difference between a human
relationship uninformed by morality and one so informed is
precisely the difference between one in which each person treats
the other primarily as a means to his or her ends and one in
which each treats the other as an end. To treat someone else as
an end is to offer them what I take to be good reasons for acting
in one way rather than another, but to leave it to them to
evaluate those reasons. It is to be unwilling to influence another
except by reasons which that other he or she judges to be good.2

In contrast to Kant's intuitions about morality there is the more recent

doctrine of emotivism. Emotivism is a theory about the meaning of moral

 

1MacIntyrc, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre. Dame, Indiana: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1984), p. 117.

21bid., p. 23.

2

judgments. It claims that moral judgments are merely the expression of
preference. It finds that values are not rational and thus, while we might be
able to give a causal history for our preferences, reasons cannot be given in
support of moral judgments. MacIntyre does not find emotivism tenable as a
theory of the meaning of evaluative statements, but he argues that it has
become true as a description of the use of evaluative statements in
contemporary Western culture.3 The importance of MacIntyre's contribution
is not so much that he has presented a refutation of emotivism as that he has
pointed out that emotivism has become embodied in contemporary Western
culture. MacIntyre argues that the rational basis for ethics has dissolved and
that we live in an emotivist culture. Indeed, we have become emotivist
selves.

MacIntyre describes two key characteristics of the emotivist self. The two
are related. First, the emotivist self lacks any ultimate criteria by which he or
she can justify ethical judgments. Second, because the emotivist self lacks
ultimate ethical criteria, he or she is unable to distinguish between
manipulative and non-manipulative interaction with others. The
distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative interaction with
others has been obliterated because, as we saw above, that distinction is made
in terms of the ability to offer another person reasons. If we cannot defend
our ethical claims with reasons, then we can never do more than merely
persuade or manipulate one another with our "ethical" claims. The
distinction is no longer viable because only one term remains a possibility.

MacIntyre is. gravely disturbed by his own diagnosis and calls our time "the

 

31bid., p. 13.

3

new dark ages."4 He calls for "the construction of local forms of community
within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained."5 I
will discuss MacIntyre's argument more fully in a later chapter.

MacIntyre defends his claim that we live in a time of moral skepticism by

pointing to the interminability of contemporary moral argumentation.

The most striking feature of contemporary moral utterance is
that so much of it is used to express disagreements; and the
most striking feature of the debates in which these
disagreements are expressed is their interminable character. I do
not mean by this just that such debates go on and on and on -
although they do - but also that they apparently can find no
terminus. There seems to be no rational way of securing moral
agreement in our culture.6

In After Virtue, MacIntyre gives examples of the interminability of
contemporary moral argumentation. It is disturbingly easy to find examples
of what MacIntyre means by the interminability of contemporary moral
argumentation. We have found such an example when we have found a set
of valid arguments for conflicting conclusions. Excellent arguments can and
have been made for conflicting conclusions concerning such issues as the
justness of modern war, the right of a woman to abortion, and the obligation
of government to provide the conditions for equality of opportunity.
MacIntyre claims that the reason that contemporary moral argumentation is
interminable is because the rival arguments are conceptually
incommensurable.7 The problem is that valid arguments can be given for
differing conclusions to the same problems. The usual rational procedure in

such a case is to examine the premises of the arguments. Conflicting

 

41bid., p. 261.
51bid.

61bid., p. 7.
71bid., p. 8.

4

contemporary moral claims are defended by arguments which can be found to
ultimately rest on premises which are the expression of normative claims.
For instance, equality may be the ultimate value of one argument which is
being compared with an argument which is shown to ultimately rest on an
appeal to liberty. What makes moral arguments incommensurable is that
there seems to be no way to argue for the ultimate normative claims or
concepts which function as premises in the chain of arguments in which one
finds oneself engaged.

MacIntyre claims that these ultimate normative claims are justified, not by
intellectual arguments, but by ways of life. They are embodied in traditions.
What we find in incommensurable moral arguments is the clash of
incommensurable moral traditions. It is one of the characteristics of
modernity that moral discourse has come to unwittingly incorporate
incommensurable moral claims into the currency of a single discourse.
Contemporary ethical agency is undercut by folding into a single discourse
incommensurable and conflicting values.

MacIntyre's argument is reflected in a wider context in the concern that
contemporary American culture is in a state of crisis because of growing
cultural diversity. That diversity was always present, but now minorities and
women are beginning to have the power and voice to refuse to be falsely
homogenized or simply ignored. The image of the melting pot is wearing
thin and being replaced with a debate about how to preserve diversity and
plurality while avoiding uncertainty about ethical values. The central value
of respect seems to require that every ethical tradition be made room for and
yet this very practice has resulted in the apparent undercutting of the

coherence of each tradition. This matter is discussed most frequently as the

 

 

 

 

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problem of the conflict among divergent communities. The assumption here
is that persons are pure representatives of distinctive, intact and coherent
traditions. The power of MacIntyre’s analysis is that he points to the
incompleteness of this presentation of the skepticism reflected in
contemporary ethical discourse. As people from differing moral traditions
interact, they pick up pieces of one another's traditions and incorporate them
into their own discursive repertoire. This process is similar to the way in
which languages incorporate words which originally came from other
languages. Indeed, this "corruption" of language is one of the ways in which
persons take up values at odds with those expressed in their predominant
ethical tradition. As in the case of language, notice that this process occurs
cumulatively through time as people hand down traditions which embody
values at odds with their current way of life or the culture they are
incorporating into the value schema which informs their choices. This
process would be harmless except that it produces agents who are
multilingual in moral traditions which contain conflicting or simply
different values. Thus, the problem of the uncertainty about ethical values
arises, not only because persons from divergent traditions can find no
common ground, but because individual ethical agents have become the
repositories of conflicting values. The modern ethical agent has become
incoherent and is likely to become increasingly so.

The above argument makes it clear that ethical skepticism cannot be
banished by eliminating diversity, nor by allowing or encouraging it. The
current debate about difference ignores MacIntyre's insight that the
incoherence is within individual ethical agents as well as among them.

Thus, the problem of contemporary ethical skepticism is three-fold: it is the

6

problem of the doubt cast on particular ethical discourses by the plurality of
discourses; it is the problem of the difficulty of coming to agreement for
persons who stand within differing ethical traditions; it is the problem of the

incoherence of individual ethical agents.

Self and Community

It should be apparent from the preceding discussion that the approach I
am taking is one that is sensitive to history. The contemporary crisis in
ethical reflection is not simply a matter of establishing the correct ethical
principles. The work of ethicists may be construed as the business of
determining the correct ethical principle or principles and the process of
applying this principle or these principles correctly. This is not the kind of
project in which I want to engage. Indeed, it is my contention that these
projects are merely the justifications and elaborations of ethical principles
already at work within a particular culture. My project is rather to explore the
way in which communities provide the condition for ethical agency.

Communities may provide the condition for coherent ethical agency in
one of two ways. First, the practices of the community may embody a
coherent, single set of values. In this case, individuals come to reflect these
values in their own judgments by participating in the institutions of the
community. Among these crucial institutions are the family, the economic
system and the church. When all of these institutions embody a consistent,
coherent and single set of values, the individuals shaped by participation in
these institutions will reflect this coherence. Such a community may be said
to be a substantive ethical community and to embody substantive values. In

such a community, particular values can be articulated as the values of the

7

community. It will be my argument that modernity cannot support such a
community. I will present this argument in the following chapter.

The second way that a community might provide the conditions for
coherent ethical agency can again be described in terms of institutions. In this
case, the institutions may act as the means of mediation among persons with
divergent substantive values. If such institutions were adequate and
successful, then they would mitigate the difficulty of persons coming to
agreement who come from differing ethical traditions and they would also
have an impact on the incoherence of individual ethical agents. I have
already introduced the notion that institutions shape individuals. What I
hope to demonstrate is that institutions might provide individuals an
opportunity to develop skills which enable them to mediate among their
own conflicting substantive values. These skills may themselves embody
values, but values of a higher order than what I will call substantive values.
Thinking historically is especially crucial for my project because I contend that
there is a sense in which persons have evolved as ethical agents. This
evolution can only be revealed if the relationship between self and
community is itself followed as an evolving relationship with influence on
ethical agency. My discussions of Hegel and Habermas will concern these
issues.

The relationship between self and community as it bears on ethical
skepticism and ethical agency will provide the focus in the following
chapters. This relationship is especially interesting because many other issues
and concepts depend on it. For instance, exploring this relationship is an
entry point to the notion of the distinctively modern self. The notion of the

distinctively modern self can be revealed by considering the way in which

8

this self can be disentangled from his or her community. Indeed, the modern
ethical agent, as articulated and clarified by Kant, is precisely that self who can
make ethical judgments in abstraction from all worldly influences, including
those stemming from his or her particular community. While the possibility
of such abstraction was conceivable for earlier thinkers and agents, it only
came into full flowering and operation in modernity. Thus, the distinctively
modern individual is baptized in the diremption of self and community.
Because Kant is the figure whose work best represents this view of the agent, I
will carefully consider his work on this subject. Kant sets the stage for ethical
reflection in modernity.

I will be engaged in analyzing the relationship between self and
community as presented in the ethical and social theory of four philosophers:
Kant, Hegel, MacIntyre and Habermas. I will be especially interested in their
conceptions of practical rationality and the way in which they find practical
rationality related to historical conditions. Each philosopher has a specific
conception of the self as a being which is capable of practical rationality. I will
demonstrate each philosopher's conception of the connection between
practical rationality and historical conditions. Thus, I will be engaged in a
theoretical project which focuses on the following two central themes: the
relationship between self and community, and the relationship between
practical rationality and historical conditions. However, I have said that my
aim is to discover the conditions for coherent ethical agency in modernity. By
’ethical agency' I mean simply being in a state of acting in a situation with
ethical implications or in a situation which is most adequately described by
reference to ethical categories. In light of my historical approach, it should be

clear that these conditions are not theoretical "conditions," i. e. dependent on

9

the discovery and implementation of the correct ethical principles. Whether
one analyzes ethical problems and ethical agency in terms of history,
conceptions of practical rationality or in terms of principles, one is engaged in
theorizing. However, my historical approach to the question of agency
suggests that the conditions for coherent ethical agency can only be brought
about through practical interventions in the world. Thus, while I will be
engaged in a theoretical activity, the results of my theorizing will have
implications for practice and will only be fully tested and filled out by practical
activity.

Let me close this brief introduction with a restatement of my aim and
signposts for how I will proceed. I hope that this introduction has made clear
the meaning of my aim and the sense of the path chosen.

In light of the failure of modern Western communities to provide the
conditions for coherent ethical agency, I am interested in attempting to
determine, at least in a general way, what kind of community or what
institutional arrangements within a community might provide the
conditions for coherent modern ethical agency. In pursuing this project, I
will attempt to clarify the relationship between self and community which I
maintain is the basis of ethical agency.

Before suggestions can be made for the conditions for modern, coherent
ethical agency, two key tasks must be performed. The relationship between
self and community must be explored as it relates to ethical agency, and the
character of modernity must be explored. These two tasks are clearly
interrelated since modernity is itself a distinctive context for persons and
communities. While some general comments can be made about the

relationship between self and community, since different kinds of

10

communities are the condition for different kinds of agents, the relationship
between modern selves and modern communities must be specifically

explored.

Agency and Community

Virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism have been the most
influential ethical theories in the Western world. All three of these contain
an analysis of the relationship between self and community. Such an analysis
is necessary since most ethical quandaries center on the impact of one
person's actions on another person or persons. Furthermore, in different
ways these theories explain how ethical agency is possible and the content of
ethical action. The least obvious case is that of deontology, but even here the
self is located within a community. Each theory contains a particular
conception of human nature and demonstrates the claim that the self is
always determined in relation to some community. Below I would like to
introduce three kinds of selves which are inscribed in their respective moral

theories.

The Virtuous Self

When Socrates was offered the choice of suicide or exile, he chose suicide.
This choice reflects the relation between self and community embraced by
virtue ethics. In choosing suicide Socrates affirmed that to be a person was to
be a citizen of one's country and that citizenship was not a cloak one could
throw off and remain a person. This community-rootedness is characteristic
of virtue ethics. The following three claims may be said to characterize virtue
ethics: (1) To be a person is to be a member of a particular community. (2)
'Good' and 'right' are defined by the norms and values of one's community.
(3) Ethical knowledge can be conveyed by examples and narratives.
The conception of the self embraced by virtue ethics contrasts with the Stoic

conception of the self. The difference between these two conceptions of the

11

12

self can be explained in terms of the different communities of which the self
is claimed to be a member. The Stoics do not reject the notion that the self
must belong to some community. The Stoics only disagree with advocates of
virtue ethics as to the community to which the self ultimately belongs. The
Stoic view is that the self is a citizen of the universe. Thus the relevant
community is the "community" of all persons. This notion suggests the
equality of all persons as opposed to the notion of person as a member of a
particular polis or particular community. It may be odd to refer to
membership in the class of rational beings in the universe as membership in
a community. The notion of community connotes sharing of particular ways
of life. However, the suggestion in the Stoic notion is that contents might be
derived from the simple fact of rationality.

Kant builds on this conception in his notion of membership in a realm of
ends.3 The Stoic notion appeals beyond the particularity of a historical
community to what is common to all human beings. In contrast to this
notion is the insinuation of the citizens of Athens, at least during the time of
Pericles, that those who were not citizens of Athens were not quite human or
at least not human in the way in which they were human. The implication
of this view is that if there is a content to the notion of good, the only place it
can be found is within one's own particular state or community. Given this
location, there can be no way of conceiving of the good of the individual, or
what is right for the individual apart from or prior to the good for the
community or state. Thus, two conclusions are drawn: (1) the good of the

individual is subordinated to the good of the state or community and, (2) the

¥

8Kant, Immanuel, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. translated by
Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1959), pp. 51 - 52.

13

individual has no appeal beyond the state or community. 'Good' and 'right'
are thus defined by the norms and values of one's community. Furthermore,
the particularity of the norms and values cannot be expressed in abstractions,
but only in concrete individual actions embedded in concrete narratives.
Thus, Aristotle instructs us that if we want to know what the right thing to do
is, we should consider what the great man of the community would do in the
situation at hand.

It is important to notice that reason is appealed to in each of the three
major Western ethical theories and especially to notice that reason means
something quite different for virtue ethics and Stoic ethics. Reason must be
the same for all those who are members of the relevant community. Since
the community which is relevant for ethical agency for the Stoics is the
community of all persons, then reason must be the same for all persons.
Since the community which is relevant for ethical agency for virtue ethicists
is a particular, historical community, then reason cannot be the universal,
ahistorical reason of the Stoics. When Aristotle wants to explain what he
means by reason, he does so by referring to a particular agent in the
community: the prudent man. It is meaningless to refer to some ideal agent.
Finally, all that Aristotle can tell us about how reason determines the mean is
that it is determined relative to all relevant elements of the situation as the

prudent man would determine it.

The Autonomous Self
The autonomous self of Kantian ethical theory is clearly the descendant of
the Stoic conception of the self. This is the conception of the self which has

come to be predominant in Western thought. It is interesting to note that

14

while there was already a tradition of dualistic thinking about the self in
ancient times, the discourse of the self as at least partially a pure, rational
agent takes a different turn in Kant. One difference between the Stoic
conception of the self and (the modern conception of the autonomous self is
that the Stoic notion assumes the unity of nature and reason.9 The rules of
nature are rational and discoverable by reason. By the time Kant takes up the
notion of the rational self, the natural rationality of the self has come to mean
something that was not part of the Stoic conception. The view of human
nature which accompanied the burgeoning capitalism of modernity was the
notion, articulated by Locke,10 that the propensity toward unlimited
accumulation was natural and rational. Kant's efforts may, in part, be seen as
attempts to sort out the natural and rational elements of the human self
which are conflated in the new psychology.

Theories of ethics tend to rely heavily on particular conceptions of the
subject. Kant's system is an especially clear example of this employment of
the concept of the subject. Kant's conception of ethics is founded on the
notion of an autonomous self whose rational will is free and imposes moral
obligations on itself. Contemporary critics have rejected this conception of
the subject. Foucault claims that this conception is a fiction which arose and
developed in particular historical situations and thus cannot be used to found
a transhistorical ethics. This raises the question of the justification of moral
decisions and the possibility of justifying moral decisions without an ethical

theory based on a conception of an ethical subject.

 

9Davidson, William L., The Stoic Creed (Salem, New Hampshire: Ayer Company
Publishers, 1979).

10Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1960), section 35.

15

In contrast to virtue ethics, Kant maintains that ethical decisions may be
justified by reference to universal laws. Kant attempts to provide an objective
grounding for ethics by requiring that the ethical subject possess an
autonomous will which gives itself only those laws which it can also will be
universal laws. "That is to say, I ought never to act except in such a way that I
can also will that my maxim should become a universal law."11 Kant
believed that in making this move he revealed the objective basis of ethics.
He identifies universal standards with objective standards by arguing that a
universal standard is valid for all rational agents.

One aspect of Kant's conception of the ethical subject, and the basis of his
ethics which has been considered a fundamental flaw, is that he finds it
necessary to introduce two‘kinds of causality: natural causality to account for
the phenomenal or sensible world and the will as a kind of causality which is
the power of rational beings to produce effects in the phenomenal world.
Furthermore, Kant argues that in order to account for the rational will there
must be a reality other than the phenomenal world with its laws of cause and
effect. There must be a timeless world, the noumenal world, in accordance
with which rational agents will. The necessary positing of such an
unknowable world has seemed objectionable to many thinkers. Thus Kant's
views have the theoretical difficulty of resting on an ontology which assumes

a necessary unknown.

The Moral Hero
Although utilitarianism and deontology have traditionally been presented

as the most opposed of ethical theories, they share a common view of the self

 

llKant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (New York:
Harper & Row, 1964), p. 70.

16

in opposition to virtue ethics. The utilitarian principle defines a good action
as that action which will bring about the greatest happiness for all who may
be influenced by the action in question.12 This principle implies that the
securing of one's own happiness or the happiness of one's family or friends is
not more important morally than the securing of the happiness of strangers.
Only to the extent that our actions may have greater impact on our own
happiness or the happiness of those close to us can we take this special
relationship into account. This principle maintains a view of the self like
that of deontology in so far as both detach the self from its particular location
and from its feelings. It is paradoxical that utilitarianism, which prima facie
is concerned with feelings of pleasure and pain, discredits the moral value of
other feelings. Love is not to be counted among the moral reasons for any
action. Thus, one must go through argumentative gymnastics to justify
saving one's mother from among a group of drowning strangers. The fact of
special relationship is not relevant apart from the issue of what action will
bring about the most happiness for all. Utilitarians have been able to make
the case for saving one's mother over strangers, but only by arguing that if
everyone cares especially for one's family, then we will all be happiest in the
long run. If this were not the case, and often in particular cases it is not, then
there is no moral reason for particular attention to one's self or one's family,
neighbors or community. Indeed, if one must choose between saving one's
elderly mother and a young brain surgeon, the clear morally correct choice is
the young brain surgeon. Deontologists can also find clever ways to defend
special obligations, but not on the basis of feeling or special connection. The

deontologist justifies special obligations by awkwardly drawing them out of

 

12Mill, John .Stuart, Utilitarianism, ed. George Sher (Indianapolis, Indiana:
Hackett Publishers, 1979), Chapter II.

17

some formulation of the categorical imperative. Thus, both utilitarianism
and deontology rest on a view of the self which is only accidentally related to
its historical location. ~

Utilitarianism is distinguished from ethical egoism by its claim that the
good action is that which will bring most happiness to the greatest number.
This ambiguous statement at least is clear in denying that the happiness of
the agent is what counts exclusively. However, it leaves as completely
mysterious what would motivate the agent to act ethically. For both Mill and
Kant, moral motivation is problematic. The modern conception of the self,
with its psychological assumption described above, severs the self from its
community and thus presents the specifically ethical agent as self-sacrificing
in ethical action. The sharp distinction between action for self and action for
others is a gulf which presumes the isolation of the self from others. By
contrast, a virtue ethics, with a view of the self as internally related to his or
her community, does not have to explain moral motivation or require moral
heroes. A person who sees him or herself as organically a part of his or her
community does not make such a sharp distinction between good for self and
good for community members. Claiming that the price of widgets should be
higher because their low price reflects the abject poverty of some third world
worker may be experienced as a selfless, moral act. However, factories in the
United States are increasingly moving to third world countries to exploit the
willingness to work for very low wages. An unemployed factory worker who
realizes the link between his or her unemployment and the exploitively low
wages of third world workers may campaign for increased wages for that
worker. The campaign will not be in the spirit of the selfless moral hero or

the selfish amoral person, but may reflect a recognition that the good of both

18

is linked. The modern conception of the self, and the conditions of
competitive capitalism which make it experientially true, give rise to the

conception of the moral as the self-sacrificing.

The Emotivist Self

The issues which link the question of the self with the problem of agency
and community are beginning to emerge. I would like to introduce these in
terms of the discussions of the virtuous self and the autonomous self. The
first discussion describes the self as obtaining its content from its community
and thus understands agency in terms of some particular community. The
second, the modern view entailed in the notion of the autonomous ethical
agent, denigrates the influence of the self's concrete setting and invokes a
rational, ahistorical self as the locus of ethical agency. The first analysis
stresses that to function in an ethical world requires a particular social and
historical location. The agent attains the capacity to act ethically by
discovering what ethical action means in his or her social setting and
practicing ethical judgment and behavior in that setting. Alternatively, the
second theory understands ethical agency as the ability to perform the correct
decision procedure which will produce the correct ethical choice. One is able
to do this because one is rational. The condition for ethical agency for both is
a rational system. For the autonomous self this means that one really can
deduce the correct ethical action, i.e. that the decision procedure is
determinant and produces a single outcome. For the virtuous self, rationality
must be concretely inscribed in the practices of the community.

I would like to demonstrate through analysis of two examples how the

view of the self which I have called the 'virtuous self' explains the rationality

19

of ethical agency. These demonstrations will serve as the basis for the
beginning of the evaluation of the conditions in the modern world which
undermine ethical agency and thus will open the way to consider conditions

which might support ethical agency in the modern world.

Two Examples

There was a Native American tribe which maintained the social practice
of excluding from the protection of any of the members' tepees any older
woman who had neither a living husband or living sons. This practice
would result in the woman's eventual death from exposure. This was the
common practice of the tribe and considered morally acceptable by the
members of the tribe. This practice is considered immoral behavior by
contemporary Westerners. However, one might come to understand, if not
condone, this practice by considering how the members of this tribe
understood their own identity. If one asked an older woman who was a
member of this tribe and had neither a living husband or living sons who she
was, she might have no answer or she might answer that once she was the
wife of so-and—so and the mother of such-and-such sons, but now she is no
one. The members of this tribe were completely identified with their social
roles. A woman such as we have described no longer has a function in her
community and so has lost her identity. She considers herself an aberration
of nature - a living dead person, a ghost who still walks the earth. She is
considered in this way by the other members of her community and in this
light it is quite understandable that no one treats her as they would a real
living person who should be sheltered from the cold. We might feel that we

better understood this praCtice when we discovered that this was a nomadic

20

tribe and realized the difficulties of survival for such a tribe. It is interesting
to notice that such a consideration would not be counted as a reason which
justified this practice by any member of the tribe. Such a reason might
explain the social evolution of this practice, but not how it functioned as a
reason for those involved. The woman is already dead because she no longer
has a social function within the tribe. It is somehow perverse to help to
maintain the dead in a twilight life.

In this example we can see how social practices can provide the parameters
within which a person can establish his or her identity. The tribal woman
knows who she is in terms of the practices which define her role in the tribe
and prescribe her duties and rights. That she is a good woman can be
objectively determined Within the practices of the tribe in terms of whether or
not she has fulfilled the duties which define her. There is consensus among
the tribal members concerning the duties of each member. Objective criteria
for evaluating actions and making decisions can be made by reference to this
background consensus. The evaluation of some practice is not simply an
arbitrary matter. But neither is it a completely ahistorical matter. The
evaluative status of some practice is not determined by the self-conscious
decision of some group, although something like this infrequently happens
when new things are discovered or novel situations occur. The fact of some
practice's evaluative status is an objective matter and still the result of
human agreement in an historical manner. The evolved agreement of
generations of persons has provided the background upon which objective
agreement, here and now, can be based. Similarly, it was generations of
evolved historical and social practice that provided the worldview that made

action in the tribe described above an objective matter.

21

The above example serves to illustrate the connections between self
identity and ethical agency and demonstrate the way in which the rational
basis for agency is inscribed in an individual's social setting. I would like to
turn now to the contemporary Western world. What is it to be a modern
person? Perhaps the best way to begin an answer to this question is by
considering a person who we can accept as representative, in ways relevant
for our inquiry, of many contemporary persons. Let us imagine what this
person might tell us about himself. His answer will give us insight into his
self-understanding of his identity. In response to our asking Scott to tell us
about himself, he mentions the following things: (a) he was born in Abilene,
Texas; (b) he is a student at Southwestern University; (c) he has a sister who
is a student at the same University; (d) he is a member of a fraternity at the
University; (e) he has two pets: a goose and a dog; (f) he likes to ride a
motorcycle without wearing a helmet; (g) he has a part-time job in a local
pharmacy, and (h) he is a member of the United Methodist Church. One
thing that is interesting about such an answer is that people really respond
with this unorganized and unhierarchized set of details about themselves.
This answer does not reveal any single primary source of identity for Scott or
even any sense that he considers some things more crucial to his identity
than others. Of course, this may be because of Scott's age and status as a
college student. It would be interesting to compare the answers of people in
different age groups and types of societies to the request to describe
themselves.

Another point of interest about Scott's response is that it demonstrates the
interaction of his social environment and his subjective experience. This

draws attention to the need to clarify the way in which the social setting of an

22

individual contributes to his or her identity formation. Scott's response gives
us evidence for and insight into the socialization of individuals. What is
particularly striking about Scott's answer is that everything he has told us
about himself consists of things which are not Scott. We might press Scott
and complain that we asked him to tell us about himself, but all he has done
is to tell us about locations, universities, siblings, fraternities, animals,
motorcycles, part-time jobs and churches. These are clearly things that exist
without Scott and would continue to exist without him. We asked Scott to
tell us about himself, not about all these other things. Scott might try to tell
us some more intimate details about himself, but we could respond in a
similar vein. If Scott tells us he is five feet and ten inches tall, we might
object that now he has referred us to a standard of measuring which has
nothing at all to do with the individual person Scott. Our point is that
whatever Scott tells us under the rubric of describing himself will be things
that point away from Scott to his world. We will be learning as much about
the world Scott lives in as we will about Scott himself. An excellent way to
learn about the way the world was two hundred years ago would be, if it were
possible, to ask someone who lived two hundred years ago to tell us about
him or herself. Our point is that the social setting of an individual is not at
all external to him or her, but a substantial feature of identity formation. This
is true in traditional societies as well as modern societies.

As a rational actor, the self must have principles of some sort to motivate
action in the various spheres of his or her life. These principles vary with the
particular setting. This fact already undermines the simplistic conception of
the atomistic self which portrays the self as motivated only by self-interest.

When Scott goes to work, he understands that he must conform to certain

23

expectations. His entire orientation to his experience is altered by his
understanding of his role. He is actively alert for cues from his environment
that he might not even notice in a non-work setting. Now he watches for
shop-lifters or the boss and is careful to be courteous. Thus, the differing
settings within which he acts influence the way he experiences his
environment and prompt selective behaviors from him. Different settings
bring with them different organizational and motivational principles which
figure into experience and action.

Let us consider an occasion in which Scott lies to protect a fraternity
brother. Given that Scott thinks it is morally right to lie to protect a fraternity
brother, if we ask him why he believes this, the answer to our question will
give us insight into the principles organizing fraternity life. The idea of a
fraternity is to create a social unit with its own identity within the larger
framework of a university; Loyalty to one's fraternity brothers and action
which will not disgrace the fraternity are values which express the idea of a
fraternity. They are principles within which the idea of a fraternity is
articulated. Given these coupled motivational and institutional insights, we
can see how lying to protect a fraternity brother can be justified as something
that is morally right within the fraternity setting. But notice that Scott's
world does not consist entirely of his life in the fraternity. Let us consider
three other features of Scott's life. He has a part-time job in a local pharmacy,
he is a member of the United Methodist Church and he is a member of a
family. The principle which organizes economic life and thus provides
motivation and explanation for behavior is the "bottom line." In a capitalist
economic system, a businessperson must act for the maximization of self-

interest. This principle does not only operate to motivate the behavior of the

24

single owner of a business, but permeates the entire economic sphere and
those behaving within it. The principle which organizes religious life is the
principle of selflessness. Here we are instructed not to think only, or even
primarily, about ourselves, but to lose ourselves in God's purposes and
service. The principle which organizes family life is that of concern for the
other members of the family, i.e. mutual nurturance. As we justified Scott's
lying for a fraternity brother, we might justify practices within the spheres
just mentioned by reference to the principles governing these spheres. The
problem with this mode of justification concerning its application to the
modern world is that it requires a separation of the different spheres of our
lives in a way that cannot practically be accomplished.

Consider the value orientation which underlies action in accordance with
The American Dream in juxtaposition with the minimum conception of
morality. The American Dream is to succeed as an individual. This is
generally understood in terms of either power or money. This is a value
which motivates and justifies behavior. The minimum conception of
morality is the idea that we should treat other people with respect. These two
imperatives often come into conflict. The minimum conception of morality
does not exempt those moments when we have an opportunity to get ahead
by, for instance, deception. Certainly to deceive someone is to not respect him
or her. This conception of morality applies to all time and all people.
Current moral dilemmas in the workplace highlight this problem.
Employees face choices of the following kind: obey the boss's order to dump
toxic waste into a river or be discharged. Employees faced with this dilemma
are often able to perform deeds which they would never have performed as

private persons because of their facility in shifting from one sphere of their

25

lives to another. This is a psychological defense mechanism produced by the
exigencies of modern life. Logically, we cannot keep the different spheres of
our lives separate. The modern world is not a coherent whole, but is made of
spheres which operate according to conflicting values. The clash of the
principles which organize moral and economic life are the most obvious

examples of this clash.

Suppose I ask the economist: am I acting in accordance with
economic laws if I earn money by the sale of my body, by
prostituting it to another person's lust (in France, the factory
workers call the prostitution of their wives and daughters the
nth hour of work, which is literally true); or if I sell my friend to
the Moroccans (and the direct sale of men occurs in all civilized
countries in the form of trade in conscripts)? He will reply: you
are not acting contrary to my laws, but you must take into
account what Cousin Morality and Cousin Religion have to say.
My economic morality and religion have no objection to make,
but . . . But whom then should we believe, the economist or the
moralist? The morality of political economy is gain, work, thrift
and sobriety - yet political economy. promises to satisfy my needs.
The political economy of morality is the riches of a good
conscience, or virtue, etc., but how can I be virtuous if I am not
alive and how can I have a good conscience if I am not aware of
anything? The nature of alienation implies that each sphere
applies a different and contradictory norm, that morality does
not apply the same norm as political economy, etc., because each
of them is a particular alienation of man; each is concentrated
upon a specific area of alienated activity and is itself alienated
from the other(s)13

What is characteristic of the modern way of life is that we live at once
within several conflicting institutional frameworks which carry with them
their own rationalities providing for motivations and responsibilities. The
typical contemporary person attempts what cannot be done: to keep separate

the motivational principles which govern the different parts of his or her life.

 

13Marx, Karl, Karl Marx Early Writings, translated by T. B. Bottomore (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 173.

26

The result is a peculiar confusion and defensive blindness resulting in
individuals who are well-functioning schizophrenics with a set of selves
discernible in terms of the behavioral norms they embrace.

A developmental notion of the self is of a subject which synthesizes its
experience and is the locus for the integration of outer and inner experience
which provides the basis of action. This self is confronted with the modern
social world and attempts to integrate the conflicting value spheres of the
modern world. The picture of the modern self which emerges is of a deeply
incoherent self. The modern self is incoherent in the sense that when one
tries to integrate the values of the modern world, one cannot succeed and yet
one must act and continue to try to make sense out of a world which makes
contradictory demands and asks us to justify our actions as though there were
a coherent scheme to which one could refer. The modern world lacks a
unified ethical life within even the complex social subsystem in which a
single person lives. This is concretely seen in the example of the employee
faced with discharge if he or she refuses to participate in illegal
environmental pollution. Workplace dilemmas like this illustrate the
complexity of the problem because they often involve the interweaving of
ethical and prudential values. To meet one's obligations to one's family is an
ethical imperative. The employee in this situation may be confronted with a
conflict of duties: duty to the common good and duty to one's dependents.
However, the origin of the conflict situation resides in that set of values
which is inscribed in the imperatives of economic activity. There does not
exist in the modern world any overarching ethical principle or hierarchy of
principles which unifies ethical life and thus provides the basis for rational

decision-making. The notion of the lack of a unified ethical life refers to the

27

broad sense of ethics as encompassing all value orientations which motivate
and justify actions. In the modern world we find competing and
contradictory spheres of values which preclude rational integration. In this
sense, the modern world is irrational.

If the above analysis is correct, the problems of the irresolvability of ethical
disputes and of the personal and arbitrary character of ethical problems and
choices are not problems which reflect the failure of ethical theory. Instead,
they are problems which reflect the absence of conditions for coherent ethical
agency. The above analysis locates the source of the problem in the
conflicting rationality spheres of the modern world. This immediately
suggests that in order to have coherent agency, we must eliminate, overcome
or mitigate this plurality. MacIntyre and Hegel confront this issue. Before
evaluating their suggestions, I would like to outline issues in the debate
between a transcendental as opposed to an historical basis for ethical agency
and prepare for a deeper understanding of the modern world by discussing
Kant. The discussion of the historical basis for ethical agency is consistent
with the previous discussion of the virtuous self while the discussion of a
transcendental basis for ethical agency is consistent with the previous

discussion of the autonomous self.

The Historical Rationalization of Valuation

The historical analysis claims that values attain a kind of objectivity
through community consensus. One problem elucidated above is that such
rationalization may fail when there is institutional conflict. The result is an
incoherence built into the valuation inscribed in the plurality of institutions

which organize a way of life. This problem, although an extremely difficult

28

one for the modern world, at least does not vitiate this way of justifying
valuation. There is a deeper and more substantial problem.

The historical analysis explains and in some sense justifies ethical claims
within a culture by showing how the claims cohere with cultural life. This
kind of justification is more along the lines of aesthetic argumentation. An
ethical claim is true if it complements or reflects the culture within which it
is made in such a way that the whole is enhanced or at least undisturbed.
There are two problems with such a means of justification. First, it cannot
allow for immanent critique. Second, when cultures come into contact with
one another and some ethical dispute arises, there is no rational way to settle
the dispute. All that can be done is to have each side try to persuade the other
to accept his or her vision of the good life as a whole. To persuade you that
my ethical claim is true, I must paint for you a picture of my way of life that
shows its beauty and enlist you in a conversion in which you come to
appreciate the beauty of my way of life. When you have been won over to my
picture of the good life, then you will be in a position to understand the truth
of my ethical claim.

Rorty has described this process of "justification" as a matter of learning a
new vocabulary and argues that change and the endorsement of features
within a culture is possible, but that this change or endorsement is also a

matter of accepting a new way of speaking.

To offer an apologetic for our current institutions and practices is
not to offer a justification of them, nor is it to defend them
against their enemies. Rather, it is to suggest ways of speaking
which are better suited to them than the ways which are left
over from older institutions and practices.14

 

l4Rorty, Richard, "The Contingency of Community," in London Review of
Books, no. 24, July 1986, p. 10.

29

What Rorty is denying is that reasons can be given for ethical claims or
political forms of life. He argues that this result follows from the rejection of
foundationalism in philosophy. Foundationalism involves the assumption

that there is a standpoint from which we can judge particular claims.

To accept the claim that there is no standpoint outside our own
particular historically-conditioned and temporary vocabulary by
which to judge this vocabulary in respect of rationality or
morality is to give up on the idea that we can reach agreement
on good reasons for using new languages, as opposed to good
reasons, within old languages, for believing statements within
those languages.15

Rorty is content to accept that good reasons cannot be given for choosing
among the conflicting norms of diverse societies. He is content to accept that
discussion about the value of institutions or norms within a society is a
matter of showing the goodness of that way of speaking. Rorty does not tell
us much about how we recognize goodness or better ways of speaking, but of
course, that would probably involve offering reasons. Rorty involves himself
in a dilemma because sometimes he does see fit to offer arguments, but
sometimes, in the name of anti-foundationalism, he does not. Of course, if
what we are pointing out here is Rorty's inconsistency, then we are invoking
a norm of rationality. Rorty might not recognize this value, indeed, his
position requires that he not be concerned with consistency. Consistency is,
after all, not only the "hobgoblin of small minds," but the crux of rational
argumentation. It is hard to know what to do with Rorty and those like him
who follow Nietzsche in a totalizing critique of reason. It is not possible to

win against them, but only because it is not possible for them to lose.

 

15Ibid.

30

The great advantage of the transcendental analysis, as noted in tracing its
Stoic origins, is that it provides a way of criticizing values. The historical
analysis seems to immunize a community from self-criticism or external
criticism. This makes nonsense of our own criticisms of our past. Surely we
want to say that slavery was wrong even when it was accepted as a moral
practice, but the historical analysis does not allow for this claim. According to
the historical analysis, slavery is ethically correct, if it is consensually accepted
and inscribed in a way of life.

The historical analysis claims that values arise through a social process.
But how does this process occur? I have given some indication of the process.
This process always occurs- within some particular, concrete setting and is
carried on through a system of language, gestures and other symbolic
structures. These structures are tools and media. In any large society,
subgroups can be identified within the larger group. In our own society there
are conflicts of interest. Overt and covert political battles ensue over these
interests. One way in which these battles are fought is through the
appropriation of symbols. "Draping oneself in the flag" is a technique for
bolstering one's position. This technique involves identifying your position
or cause with the value of patriotism. No one wants to be seen as unpatriotic.
If one is successful in identifying one's cause as a patriotic cause, then one's
opposition must confront this. Whether or not one's cause is patriotic,
successful association of the cause with patriotism will be beneficial. So,
political battles often devolve into battles over the means of presentation and
interpretation.

Examples of the importance of controlling the presentation of an issue

abound. The battles over names provide examples of the importance of

31

controlling the presentation of an issue. Terms like 'pro-choice', 'pro-life'
and 'African-American' are politically loaded terms which have substantial
impact on how groups communicate with the public at large. Furthermore,
as with the battles over the use of 'women' as opposed to 'girls' and the
current contest between 'black' and 'African-American', the introduction of
new terminology provides an opportunity for members of the groups whose
names are contested to re-examine their own self-understanding and the
content of their individual and group identity. It is clear in these examples
that names do matter and are not simply flags that the user is keeping up
with the latest fashion. The battle over the terms 'Mexican-American',
'Chicano', 'hispanic' and 'Latin American' are especially instructive. The use
of the term 'Chicano' in the 1960's was an opportunity for members of that
community to examine their own relationship with their Indian history and
consciously recognize their own devaluation of that history.16 It was also an
opportunity to openly discuss discrimination as a cause of that devaluation
and thus became a nodal point for political action.

The term 'African-American' is rapidly replacing the term 'black' in
common usage. The very rapidity of this change reflects the growing power
of African-Americans. It indicates that African-Americans have more power
than in the past over, not only concrete issues, but their own self-
understanding. The historical analysis of the arising and justification of
values fails in so far as it does not provide a way of criticizing the values
internal to a community. The above examples provide a preliminary

indication that an internal critique is possible when one recognizes that not

 

16Mirande, Alfredo and Enriquez, Evangelina, La Chicano (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 10 - 11.

32

all groups of a community have equal access to control over the development

of valuation.

Suppose it were the case that dominant groups within society -
here I include class and race dominance as well as gender
dominance - had a privileged relation to what I shall call "the
socio-cultural means of interpretation and communication."17

To insist on being called 'Chicano' was to confront the devaluation of
Indian ways of life and to refuse to collude in one's. own oppression.
However, raising the issues that accompany contests over names requires
media access. Most obviously, one needs access to print, electronic media,
stages and artistic venues. To obtain such access, one must obtain validation
from whomever controls these access points. Access will tend to be more
difficult in proportion to the subversiveness of the issue at hand. Given the
way in which the historical analysis describes the creation and sustenance of
meaning, a message which conveys a value at odds with the dominant value
complex may simply be unintelligible. It may not be recognized as a
meaningful statement. Someone brought up in a community in which all
goods are held in common may simply not comprehend the value of gain
exclusively for oneself. Aristotle considered gain for the sake of gain to be a
vice, pleonexia, however, this goal is considered by many in contemporary
culture to be acceptable and indeed to be the main principle which explains
behavior.

The problem for the historical method of analysis of the apparent
impossibility of internal critique or of transcultural critique of values is that it
does not provide tools for evaluating the power relationships which

determine what value or which set of values become current in a society.

 

17Fraser, Nancy, "Toward a Discourse Ethic of Solidarity," Praxis International
5:4 January 1986, p. 425.

33

The ability to decode the interests embedded in various values suggests that
the inscription of values in institutions is not a procedure best understood in
terms of accidents and aesthetic principles. The procedure itself has
normative implications. Thus, the historical analysis need not fail and be
superseded by a transcendental analysis or emotivism, it requires the
incorporation of theoretical tools for the analysis of political struggles
associated with social movements. The first step on this path is a fuller

understanding of Kant's conception of the autonomous self.

The Autonomous Self

I would like to restate key points from the preceding two chapters. I began
by noting the irresolvability of contemporary moral argumentation. Analysis
of a concrete moral agent illustrated the existence of conflicting principles
instantiated in contemporary institutions and the way in which this conflict
vitiates coherent agency. Lack of social consensus on value issues was
explained in terms of the institutions in which individuals gain their self
understanding and develop motivations and justifications for action. I
argued that the conflicting institutionalized principles are related to the
capacities of individuals to make moral decisions in practical settings. This
line of argument suggests that the moral consciousness of a single individual
is not the appropriate unit for the analysis of contemporary moral reflection.

I have argued that the self obtains the particularity of its content from its
social and historical setting. Of course, the self is not a sponge which simply
repeats in itself what is presented to it in experience. Rather, the language
taught to an individual, the social institutions within which an individual is
socialized and the entire symbolic setting of an individual life is the context
for his or her experience. If this is true, then it has profound implications for
agency. Surely, the drastically different settings of. modernity and
premodernity must be relevant for agency. In terms of the broadest strokes, I
locate the difference between modernity and premodernity in three
developments: industrialization, capitalism and science. These three
developments dramatically changed the lives of individuals. A person
socialized in an environment in which these were not the major contexts of
life must be significantly different than a person socialized within them.

Kant, born in 1724 in Prussia, is poised at a time when these changes were

34

35

beginning to show themselves in the ways in which people thought. The
problems resulting from the implications of modernization were beginning
to be felt. Kant is particularly disturbed by the dark implication of the new
science that persons are natural machines. Kant is caught between the
following: a premodem worldview in which nature and society were not
clearly distinguished and thus values and norms were conceived of as quasi-
natural and therefore objective; the social structure of feudalism with its
clear social positions and obligations, and the newly evolving modern science
with its assumption that everything can be explained in terms of unthinking
matter in motion. The nature of agency and especially ethical agency is
challenged by the new scientific assumption and the social ground of moral
obligation drops from the everyday consciousness at the same moment.

The other element which is crucial for Kant's thinking is his Christianity.
The view of ethical agency contained within Christianity is the idea that each
person stands alone with his or her conscience in front of a judging God.
Oddly, the individualism suggested in this conception of the relationship
between individual person and God is resounded in the social relations
entailed in the newly growing capitalism. Each economic agent is on his or
her own in the market. This is quite a different economic order than that of
feudalism. Kant's moral philosophy attempts to make sense of moral agency
in light of the loss of the experience of objectivity concerning values and
norms, the new individualism and the new mechanistic science. His
solution to the puzzle was to develop the conception of the autonomous
moral agent. The keystone of this conception was the notion of autonomy.

Kant's influence on contemporary moral argumentation cannot be overly

stated. Contemporary moral argumentation relies heavily on the concept of

36

autonomy. This concept locates the single individual's capacity for
independent judgment as the necessary ingredient for distinctively moral
judgment. Notice that this concept is at odds with the claims I have made.
My analysis indicates that the level of the individual is not the appropriate
level for an inquiry into the conditions for modern agency. However, the
notion of autonomy does seem to cohere with the social setting of modernity.
Thus, the concept of autonomy must be examined and, I will argue,
rehabilitated if progress is to be made on analysis of the conditions for
contemporary moral agency.

In this chapter I would like to discuss the distinctively modern conception
of the moral agent and its autonomy as developed by Kant. This conception
of the moral agent divorces the conditions for moral agency from the
historical and social setting of the individual. I will argue that this
conception fails to address the practical dimension of moral action by creating
an unbridgeable gulf between the concrete possibilities of the agent and an
ahistorical moral subject. The Kantian conception of moral agency posits an
antagonism between the individual and community and disallows moral
justification in terms of appeals to historically conditioned frameworks and
justifications. However, since Kant's conception of moral motivation cannot
provide content for practical action, Kant's view of moral agency leaves no
basis for agency. I will argue that Kant's conception of moral agency fails
because of the gap between the practical agent and the noumenal self and that
this view of agency undernunes ways of conceiving of the relation between
self and community which might provide an alternative framework for
moral discourse and justification. My discussion will be divided into five

sections. First, I will present Kant's conception of moral agency. Second, I

37

will criticize Kant's account of moral agency by discussing the gap between
concrete agency and ahistorical subjectivity. Third, I will comment on Kant's
use of the notion of respect. Fourth, I will suggest that Kant presents a false
dichotomy of the self. Finally, I will draw the implications of the first four

sections for my overall project.

Kant's Conception of Moral Agency

Pure reason is practical of itself alone, and it gives (to man) a
universal law, which we call the moral law.18

As was his strategy in the Critique of Pure Reason, in the Critique of
Practical Reason Kant proceeds to develop fundamental ethical principles
from the facticity of ordinary experience. The ordinary and universal
experience of interest concerning practical reason is the experience of moral
obligation. The experience of moral obligation is the experience of being
commanded to perform some particular action. The linguistic form
associated with commands is the imperative. Thus moral commands take
the general form of imperatives. Kant clarifies the nature of moral
experience by distinguishing it from another kind of imperative.

We have experience of two kinds of imperatives: hypothetical and
categorical. Hypothetical imperatives are practical rules that direct us to take
some particular action given that we desire some end, e.g. if you desire good
health, then you should exercise regularly. Reason is here informed by the
laws of nature. We observe natural regularities and determine how we can
intervene in the chain of natural causation in a way that will bring to pass the

end we seek. If we cease to desire the end of some hypothetical imperative,

 

18Kant, Immanuel, Critique- of Practical Reason, translated by Lewis White
Beck (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Menill Company, Inc., 1956), p. 32.

38

then the imperative ceases at that moment to be an imperative for us.

However, Kant thinks that we experience another kind of imperative.

If the action is good only as a means to something else, the
imperative is hypothetical; but if it is thought of as good in
itself, and hence as necessary in a will which of itself conforms to
reason as the principle of this will, the imperative is
categorical.19

We sometimes experience imperatives as not dependent upon our desire
for some end. Such experience is distinctively moral experience. It is the
experience of command to perform an action which is not dependent upon
our desire to achieve some end. This is the experience of obligation or
"ought." Kant's moral philosophy is an attempt to account for this kind of

experience.

Everyone must admit that a law, if it is to hold morally, i.e., as a
ground of obligation, must imply absolute necessity; he must
admit that the command, "Thou shalt not lie," does not apply to
men only, as if other rational beings had no need to observe it.
The same is true for all other moral laws properly so called. He
must concede that 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 concept of pure
reason20

Kant argues for a distinctly ahistorical conception of the nature of moral
experience for two reasons. First, he thinks that we experience moral
commands as unconditional. To clarify this, consider how an alternative
view of moral experience might characterize our experience. A religiously
based moral theory might argue that we deduce correct action from beliefs
about what God commands. Thus, moral experience is construed as having

the character, "Do x, if you wish to conform to God's laws." However, this

 

l9Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 31.
201bid., p. 5.

39

imperative is clearly hypothetical. Kant thinks that this formulation does not
capture the nature of moral experience because it allows for the possibility
that the end, or condition, of the proposed action may be eliminated. We
may cease to desire to conform to God's laws. Such a possibility indicates to
Kant that any conditional formulation of "moral" imperatives is based on
contingent and subjective determinants. He maintains that our distinctively
moral experience is experience of a command which is not dependent on
subjective inclination which can be altered. Subjective inclinations are
always the result of conditions in the phenomenal world. Their origins can
be described and explained in terms of natural laws and human nature.
Human beings are creatures whose experience all occurs within the forms of
intuition of time and space; thus, moral experience always takes place for
human beings at particular time/ space locations. However, moral experience
is ahistorical in that it is not conditioned by any occurrence in the
phenomenal world. Moral commands are the deductions of pure reason.
The second reason for Kant's insistence on the ahistorical nature of moral
experience concerns the formal necessity of moral consciousness. Moral
consciousness is strictly rational and thus applies, not only to human beings,
but to any rational agents. Thus, Kant's moral subject represents the ethical

analogue of the Cartesian epistemological subject.

The moral subject is understood to constitute a "sphere of
absolute origins" that is at least capable of providing
determining grounds of action in isolation from all contexts of
historical and social dependence. Just as Descartes'
epistemological subject can directly apprehend his independent
existence as a thinking substance through simple reflection in
the form of "I think," Kant's practical subject can directly
apprehend his independent existence as a morally accountable

40

agent (i.e., a rational personality) through the universal
experience of moral'obligation in the form of "I ought."21

Kant argues in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals that any
moral principle which holds for human beings must also hold for any
rational beings. If lying is morally prohibited, then it must be prohibited, not
only for human beings, but for all rational beings.”- Thus, moral principles
and imperatives cannot be derived from human nature or human
conditions, but from pure a priori principles of reason.

Kant's explanation of moral experience introduces a radical distinction
between a phenomenal and noumenal realm. The phenomenal realm is the
realm of all objects which appear in time and space. The noumenal realm is
the realm of freedom, reason, and morality. Our moral experience does not
have the character of being imposed from outside. The category of the moral
only arises for creatures who are free. Only if we are free can we be held
accountable morally for our actions. Thus, the neumenal realm cannot be a
realm which is imposed on us as determining our action in an external way.
Instead, Kant argues that we have a dual self: an empirical or phenomenal
self and a noumenal self.

Kant's argument can be reconstructed in the following way. His initial
premise is simply that human beings can act. Action is different from the
movement of animals which proceeds from instincts and different from
change of place in the inanimate world which proceeds from mechanical and
chemical changes. Movement from instinct can be reduced to movement
from mechanical and chemical processes. Human beings can act on the basis

of reason; they can instantiate principles in their actions. To act on the basis

 

21Stern, Paul, "The Problem of History and Temporality in Kantian Ethics,"
Review of Metaphysics, Volume 39, March 1986, p. 544.

22Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. p. 5.

41

of reason is to be free from the necessity of mechanical causes. There is a
more positive meaning of freedom in addition to this negative meaning.
One acts freely when one is moved only by oneself and not by external causes.
Kant argues that we have the capacity to act freely because we have a rational
nature. Reason is not external to ourselves. We are rational beings. Thus,
when we act rationally, we are acting from principles identical with
ourselves. These principles are not ours as individuals. We are dual selves:
part phenomenal and part rational. The rational part participates in
principles which are valid for all rational beings. Thus, when we are acting
rationally our individual identity ceases and we are identical with the being
of all rational agents. That "being" is ahistorical. All that is particular about
us is located in our phenomenal, historical being. It is significant that our
phenomenal, historical being is not our moral being.

One way of understanding agency is to conceive of the agent as a set of
motivational principles from which issue actions in concrete settings. The
task of developing a theory of agency then becomes the task of determining
where these principles originate and how they are applied in the world. Since
Kant focuses heavily on the idea of the moral self as acting on principles, his
view seems consonant with this approach. The Kantian moral self, then, is a
set of motivations and principles. However, according to Kant, when we act
morally, we do not act as concrete individuals, but as agents who can apply a
single set of principles in action. Moral action is precisely that action which
every rational being would endorse. Thus, when we act morally, we do not
act as concrete individuals who each have different motivations and
principles obtained through experience. Instead, we act as agents who can

apply a single set of principles in action. If we locate a self in terms of a set of

42

motivations and principles which explain that self's action, then in moral
action, according to Kant's view, agents are all the same. If concrete
individuals are sets of motivations and interests, then the Kantian moral self
is the same in all of us. Personal histories fall away and what remains as
agent is endlessly repeated in each individual. Platonic language suggests
itself here as‘ more accurately capturing this conception: each historical
individual participates in a single moral self. Thus, historical, phenomenal
selves are individuated, but the moral self is not individuated.

This interpretation is open to the criticism that Kant did not claim that
persons ceased to be individuated as rational beings. "By "realm" I
understand the systematic union of different rational beings under common
laws."23 However, if we continue with the passage just quoted, a perplexity

arises.

Because laws determine ends with regard to their universal
validity, if we abstract from the personal difference of rational
beings, and thus from all content of their private ends, we can
think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection, a whole of
rational beings as ends in themselves as well as of the particular
ends which each may set for himself. This is a realm of ends,
which is possible on the aforesaid principles.“

What remains after one abstracts "the personal difference of rational
beings, and thus from all content of their private ends?" What ends could a
concrete person have if everything which contributed to personal differences
among persons was disregarded? One could not have a duty to someone to
whom a promise has been made since the occasion of promising to that
person is a personal difference between oneself and others. The objection

raised here is that particular duties arise only because of particular facts about

 

23Ibid., p. 51.
“mar. pp. 51 - 52.

43

particular agents in concrete situations. If we bracket our personal differences,
then there is nothing left onto which to anchor duties. Surely it is a personal
difference between two people that one is a parent and another is not, or that
one has made a promise and the other has not. If these are not "personal
differences," then it is not clear what would count as a personal difference.
Above I have discussed Kant's conception of agency and argued that there
are some problems with it. I would like to continue this argument in the
following section. I will argue that Kant's view of the self and agency
eliminates consideration of factors necessary for a concrete person to have a
basis for making choices. In particular I want to show the interconnection of
the self's setting in a historical community, the consideration of future
possibilities for the concrete individual and ethical decision-making. I will
argue that Kant's view establishes an unbridgeable gap between the concrete

agent and the Kantian moral subject.

Concrete Agency and Ahistorical Subjectivity

We have seen above how Kant fragments the self into a rational self and
an empirical self. The rational self is the locus of morality. The empirical self
is the self which suffers inclinations. Kant is certainly right that our needs
and desires are conditioned by our historical and social locations. Marx
clearly makes this point. Every sense of a human being is informed by
experience. The human eye and the human ear see and hear differently
according to the social experience to which they have been exposed. Music,
for instance, is only heard by an ear which has been trained to hear music
instead of disconnected sounds or noises. Our most primary experience is not

of a "natural" world or a scientific world, but of a human world. That means

44

that what we experience has been influenced by those human beings who
have preceded us and left us with a particular history. "The cultivation of the
five senses is the work of all previous history."25 Language and other social
practices are the carriers of the accumulation of human history. Our
inclinations are shaped by our cultural experiences. When we are hungry we
do not simply desire food, but food prepared in a particular way. All of our
desires and inclinations are mediated by our cultural experience. Kant
misunderstands the distinctiveness of being human in so far as locates our
humanity in our power for rationality. We might instead locate the
distinctiveness of being human in the very plasticity of our desirous natures.
One may argue that manyunon-human animals demonstrate a capacity for
rationality.25 Human being may be unique, not in possessing the capacity for
rationality, but in the fact of the social construction of their experience.
Kant's rejection of the empirical part of our selves is thus mistaken, if his
goal is to locate our uniqueness in our rationality.

In so far as we do not choose the historical and social settings into which
we will be born, Kant is correct that we are not free in determining our
inclinations. Since Kant connects freedom and morality, he claims that our
empirical self cannot be the locus for morality. Our rational self is our moral
self. Our empirical self is partly constituted by needs which are socially
constituted as objects of experience. It is important to notice that our
historically shaped inclinations provide us with our goals. What we desire is
to obtain something in the future and our choices about what actions to

perform are influenced by our concrete goals. Our concrete goals inform the

 

25Marx, p. 161.

26Rowan, Andrew N., Of Mice, Models and Men (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1984), p. 258.

45

choices which we make. However, Kant insists that moral choices can only
be made on the basis of respect for the moral law. Acting out of respect for the
moral law requires that we do not include in our deliberations any
consideration of our inclinations and goals which we posit for ourselves in
the concrete world. We must make our choices only by considering what we
could will that any rational agent do. Kant articulates the moral law as
follows: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same
time will that it should become a universal law."27 Clearly, I must abstract
from my personal situation and goals if I am to act according to a maxim
which I could will to become a law by which every rational agent must abide.
I would like to argue that this abstracting eliminates the content necessary for
any agent to make choices in the world because Kant's conception divorces
the concrete agent from real future possibilities of action. Let me provide an
example which illustrates this problem.

Let us consider a concrete example of a moral dilemma which has
captured contemporary ethical reflection in the United States as paradigmatic
of a moral problem. Consider a woman with an unwanted pregnancy who is
considering abortion. If she were to follow Kant's recommendations for how
to make a moral choice, she would respond to her situation by considering
possible alternative actions and determining the maxim instantiated in each.
She would act on the maxim which applied the moral law, e.g. the action
which she could will at the same time to become a universal law. This would
require that she not include in her deliberations elements of her own
particular situation which concern her desires and inclinations for herself.

The absurdity of this method becomes clear when one considers that the

 

27Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 39.

46

construction of the problem itself must necessarily include a reference to
possible futures for the agent which are based on goals shaped by inclinations
which in turn reflect the social and historical setting of the individual.
Pregnancy is a biological state. It is constructed as a problem, or not a
problem, only within a particular social and historical setting. Contemporary
women in the United States often find pregnancy to be a problem, as opposed
to a simple biological fact, because it impacts on the futures which they have
chosen for themselves. It is constructed as a problem only because of the very
particular social situation currently existing in the United States. This
problem is that pregnancy, childbearing and childrearing are often
incompatible with pursuit of a career. The biological fact is reconstructed as a
problem only in the reflected light of posited goals within a particular social
setting. The moral problem of whether or not to choose an abortion is thus
not a problem that an abstract, ahistorical agent can have. It is only a concrete
person in a concrete setting with particular goals and envisioned future
selves which can have this particular problem. It is absurd to attempt to apply
Kant's moral law because choice of whether or not to have an abortion must
bring into consideration what future self the agent has posited as a goal. Thus
the possible future for a particular person must be considered. Abstract
considerations are not relevant. Furthermore, the social setting of the
individual must be invoked as establishing the possible choices of the
individual and what those choices mean. To choose to have a child in a
society without adequate child care is an entirely different choice than to
choose to have a child within a society which does have adequate child care
or to choose to have a child in a society in which there are no options for

work outside the home or in which an extended family offers built-in child

47

care as the norm. Therefore, the Kantian fragmented self posits a moral agent
from whom is divorced considerations which are constitutive of the actual
character of presenting moral problems and who is denied consideration of
those elements which might actually inform decision-making.

These results flow directly from Kant's conception of the dual self and
particularly the ahistorical moral subject. As noted above, the moral subject
does not exist in time. Paul Stern clearly articulates the problems which
result for moral action from splitting the self into a timeless and a historical

self.

The ascription of at'e‘mporality to the moral subject is misguided
because it fails to grasp the internal connection between the
object of an agent's practical choice and his own future
possibilities of action . . . If the decision is divorced from this
futural horizon of possibilities of action, it loses its specifically
practical dimension.28

Respect for Others and Temporality

Concrete moral choices not only involve decisions which affect our own
futures and thus necessarily reflect our desires and historical horizons, but
they involve decisions about how our actions impact the futures others have
chosen for themselves. Kant's moral theory emphasizes the importance of
respect for others. The choices of others are to be respected because human
beings have dignity. This dignity has its source in our rationality and ability
to embody the moral law in our practice. However, concrete application of
the dictum of respect for others presents a quandary similar to the one
described above. Persons make choices based on their historically conditioned

desires for themselves and others. To respect the choices of others, according

 

28Stern, p. 533.

48

to Kant, is not to respect the historically conditioned self, but the purely
rational self. Why shouldl not steal someone's savings through a confidence
game? The Kantian answer might be one of the following. (1) If people
could not trust that their savings were safe, then the practice of saving would
cease and thus it would not be possible to steal anyone's savings. Thus, the
practice of stealing savings, if it were to be universalized, would annihilate
itself. (2) I cannot will that someone steal my savings through a confidence
game; thus, I cannot universalize the maxim on which I would be acting in
this case. Where is the element of respect in these considerations? Surely the
common sense notion of respecting others is based on the recognition that
others have their own goals and plans with which I ought not to interfere.
Why? The source of Kant's respect for humanity is his recognition that
human beings are ontologically unique in being the locus of origination of
action. Tables and chairs do not initiate action. Human beings are creatures
who inspire awe because they produce action from nothing. They are
originators. Again we hear the Cartesian self echoed here. Kant locates this
power to originate in our rationality. It is the rational in us that is worthy of
respect. However, if we think about the content of person's choices, Kant's
mistake is revealed. The actual choices people make for themselves are
conditioned by the historical and cultural options available to them and by
their own personal histories. When concrete agents in the world consider
action which might impact the bringing into being of some other agent's
choices, they must consider the conditioned choices which that other has
made. In respecting the other, one must respect that other's conditioned
choices. In determining my concrete action, I honor the agent, not as a purely

rational self, but as an embodied self which is the possessor of historical

49

choices. It is wrong to steal someone's savings because such action would
interfere with the future that person has chosen for him or herself. That

future is a future for a historical self, not an ahistorical self.

Kant's False Dichotomy

It is crucial for later argument to note that Kant poses for himself a false
dichotomy between the self as simply a bundle of contingent, "personal," facts
and the self as ahistorical, timeless rational being. He follows the new
scientific thinking of his time that nature and values belong to separate
realms. Nature is conceptualized as the realm of inanimate necessity and not
itself a source of worth. He accepted the distinction, newly made, between
values and facts. He clearly argues that morality cannot legitimately result
from the merely contingent. His project in his ethical writings, and perhaps
the whole of his philosophy, is to explain and justify the obligatoriness of
ethical imperatives.

Kant is working with only two conceptions of the self: the self as
contingent and the self as universal. He can conceive of only these two
possibilities because he has accepted the view of Bacon and Hobbes. He has
turned the epistemological corner with the new materialists. Once he accepts
that human beings in the phenomenal world are subject to the laws of
nature, like other objects in the phenomenal world, and thus are as devoid of
meaning and value as are other objects, then moral necessity can only be
derived from outside this sphere of contingency. He must reinvent persons
as existing outside of the phenomenal world if he is to save ethical agency.
The crucial assumption he makes is that the materialists are right in applying

the methods of the natural sciences to the study of social phenomena. It is

50

assumed that the smallest particles of matter have properties of their own
which can be studied in isolation from other particles. The movement of
particles can then be understood as a function of their own properties in
conjunction with forces which may act on all particles. The interaction of
particles is understood in terms of each particle's inherent properties plus the
forces which act upon it. This conception is fallaciously applied to human
beings.

The abandonment of Aristotelian teleology and acceptance of a
mechanistic view of the phenomenal self leads Kant to a false dichotomy
concerning the self. He conceives of only two possible views of the self and
the self's relationship to its historical community. Later I will present and
argue for another possibility. Within the limitations of these views of the
self, ethics presents itself as either grounded in personal peculiarities or in
timeless reason. Given that Kant conceives of human communities
according to the model of isolated physical atoms, he cannot conceive of
individuals as internally related to their communities or social collectives.
This later view of the relationship between individuals and communities can
provide a way of conceptually fixing the unboundedness of modern
subjectivity. Lacking this view, Kant supports a scheme which banishes
historical facts about a person from the realm of the moral.

In Kant's view we can see a rehabilitation of some basic Aristotelian
concepts and at least a partial recapture of the lost orderly universe. In a
sense, life, on the Kantian view, expresses a purpose or idea. Order has been
restored to the universe in the form of universal rationality which is

expressed in contingent sub-subjects. The modern twist is that the order does

51

not exist separately from the subjects. Agents are legislators and subjects at

once.

This legislation, however, must be found in every rational
being. It must be able to arise from his will, whose principle
then is to take no action according to any maxim which would
be inconsistent with its being a universal law and thus to act
only so that the will through its maxims could regard itself at the
same time as universally lawgiving.29

The Aristotelian conception is different than the Kantian in so far as the
Aristotelian conception of the self refers to a form of self which exists
independently of the particular selves which may or may not realize it. The
modern Kantian self does not aim at conforming with an external form of
human being but of expressing in action its self-identity. Thus the self is free
from the givenness of instinct, mechanism and transcendental forms.
Modern subjectivity is bounded only by itself. The self is autonomous.

The radical freedom of this self is exhilarating, but the price is high.
Kant's view splits us in two and puts the two sides in perpetual struggle. The
givenness of our historical locations and our needs and desires as creatures
provide us with inclinations which are frequently opposed to duty as
determined by ahistorical reason. Our radical freedom is bought with the

alienation of our natural and historical selves.

Temporality, Imagination and Action

In the introductory chapter I argued that to be a person is to be a social and
historical creature. I also tried to indicate, in a preliminary way, the impact
our social and historical character has on our capacities as ethical agents. I

also argued for the importance of the temporal dimension of our experience

 

29Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 52.

52

for ethical agency. I would like to elaborate on those thoughts and bring them
to bear on my claim that the Kantian view of the ethical subject is problematic
because of its atemporality. In particular, I want to clarify the way in which
these considerations impact on the connection between the self, ethical
agency and community.

A concrete moral problem is not an absolute or determinate given which
presents itself as self-constituted to a passive subject. When a concrete person
acts, the occasion which prompts action functions merely as a nexus which is
variously constituted according to a number of parameters. The constitution
of the problem in its particularity necessarily involves temporality. Sartre has
emphasized the temporal dimension in the determination of the meaning of

action.

The meaning of a conduct and its value can be grasped only in
perspective by the movement which realizes the possibles as it
reveals the given.

Man is, for himself and for others, a signifying being, since
one can never understand the slightest of his gestures without
going beyond the pure present and explaining it by the future.30

Several elements are involved in the construction of a moral problem. (1)
The desired futures of all those who might be affected by action taken in
response to the occasion. (2) The objective elements of the presenting
occasion. (3) The possible futures which might result given the actions
which might be taken. (4) The possible actions which might be taken.

While Kant emphasizes freedom as the fact necessary for morality, I
would argue that it is our ability to imagine counterfactually which is the fact

crucial for making morality possible. The Kantian conception of the fact of

 

30Sartre, Jean-Paul, Search for a Method, translated by Hazel E. Barnes (New
York: Alfred A. KnOpf, Inc., 1968). p. 152.

53

freedom, i. e.5that we can will according to pure reason, is secondary to the fact
that we can conceive of possibilities which might come about given various
actions. It is because we can conceive of various possible futures and the
impact our actions will have on producing those futures that we can be held
accountable for our actions and the effects of those actions. Without the
possibility of accountability, there is no morality. An occasion takes on the
character of a moral problem when we compare (1) and (3) in light of (4). If
we might take some action which would effect the possible future selves of
ourselves or others, then we become part of the causal chain which is
partially productive of that self: our action becomes part of the history of the
resultant self. What is crucial to notice is that present actions are internally
related to future selves. This is only to emphasize the historicity of the self.
The freedom of the self is not absolute. I can only become an airplane pilot if 5
I live in a time in which there are airplanes! Socrates was not free to become
an airplane pilot. Indeed, Socrates was not free to take up a stance toward this
absent future self. The self's freedom consists in two elements. First, its
ability to partially construct situations by taking up a stance in response to
comparing possible futures reflected through the objective elements of the
occasion and the desired future or futures. Second, its capacity to take up a
number of responses to the constructed situations. Kant's presentation of the
moral realm is of a static realm of determinant moral problems and maxims
among which only one could be universally willed. Clearly, this presentation
misses the mobile character of the construction of moral problem situations.
It is ironic that it was Kant's C0pernican revolution which was itself the

historical antecedent of this kind of thinking.

54

Kant's conception of ethics is inadequate because it fails to articulate and
incorporate a social and historical analysis. Kant is blind to the ways in which
the agent is socially and historically constrained. All four elements of a moral
problem situation have social determinants. (1) The desires which agents
have for particular futures are socially conditioned. Future selves are marked
by the valuation inscribed in the agent's community. The agent may choose
to accept or reject that valuation, but that acceptance or rejection itself is only
intelligible in light of some narrative history in which the agent's social
interactions loom large. (2) The objective elements of the occasion are
partially socially constituted. The objective elements include social
institutions, language and .the social meaning of elements of the occasion.

All of these elements are objective in the sense of being intersubjectively
fixed, but also historical in that they are the result of social choices and
development through time. (3) The possible future selves are partially
socially determined given that they depend on social institutions, the
interaction of others and the recognition of others. (4) The action
possibilities are partially socially constrained in so far as they take place in a
social milieu, are based on socially acquired competencies and have effect
because of their social meaning. Thus, ethical agency can only be understood
when we realize that agents act, not as isolated individuals or pure rational
agents, but as concrete members of particular communities. It is the agent’s
community which provides the key to understanding the meaning of the
presenting occasion and the key to understanding the futures which
reflectively construct the particularity of the occasion as having an ethical

dimension.

55

Two things are indicated by the above comments. First, whenever a
person acts, that action is intelligible as a particular action only on the
backdrop of that person's community. Thus, discussion of agency must locate
the agent within a particular community. The condition of the possibility of
action, as opposed to simple change of place, is a community which is a bearer
of meaning and provides the setting within which action may occur. On a
less abstract level, we have seen that communities provide the basis for
principles and motivations for action. Second, while agency necessarily relies
on community, a community may be more or less adequate as the condition
for coherent agency. Problems with agency immediately implicate the agent's
community. An analysis of the inadequacy of contemporary agency requires
an analysis of the social and historical conditions which vitiate coherent
agency. Proposed solutions to the problems of agency must address how
conditions might be changed so that the conditions for coherent agency might
be established. Although Kant was not trying to provide such an account, his
analysis of ethical principles cannot function as a guide here because of his
failure to root agency in community. MacIntyre takes a historical approach,
argues for the inadequacy of contemporary agency and makes suggestions
about conditions for adequate agency. I would like to turn now to MacIntyre's

analysis and proposal.

The Rejection of Modernity

Kantian moral philosophy retains the Stoic notions of universality in
reasoning and the true self as a member of the community of the universe of
rational agents. These notions have the great value of explaining how
historical moral traditions can be criticized and of providing a yardstick by
which moral progress can be measured. They are emancipatory in so far as
they can be employed in these ways and in so far as they imply the equality of
all persons. Thus, a great benefit of Kantian moral philosophy is that it
provides a standpoint from which to criticize historical moral traditions.
This is something any moral theory must be able to do. It may seem that a
historically sensitive account of ethical questions cannot have the resources
to criticize local norms since it is committed to the view that standards for
resolving ethical questions derive their validity from local traditions.

MacIntyre clearly appreciates the historical character of valuation and
ethical agency.

For it was Vico who first stressed the importance of the
undeniable fact, which it is becoming tedious to reiterate, that
the subject matters of moral philosophy at least - the evaluative
and normative concepts, maxims, arguments and judgments
about which the moral philosopher enquires - are nowhere to be
found except as embodied in the historical lives of particular
social groups and so possessing the distinctive characteristics of
historical existence: both identity and change through time,
expression in institutionalized practice as well as in discourse,
interaction and interrelationship with a variety of forms of
activity. Morality which is no particular society's morality is to
be found nowhere.31

Although MacIntyre is committed to the historical specificity of values, he

does not think that this commitment leads to the conclusion that moral

 

31MacIntyre, pp. 265 - 266.
56

57

traditions are insulated from criticism. Others have criticized moral
traditions on the basis of coherence, consistency or the availability of
institutions which provide an opportunity for consensus formation on moral
issues. While MacIntyre mentions these kinds of criticisms, the real key to
his critique is the concept of virtue. MacIntyre seems to be walking a
tightrope between an historical analysis and a universalist analysis. On the
one hand, he argues forcefully and persuasively that moral traditions are
historically specific. On the other hand, he argues that all moral traditions
and the communities which embody them can be criticized by a single
criterion. That criterion is whether or not they provide the conditions in
which the virtues can flourish. The virtues are those dispositions which any
human being needs in order to live a satisfying human life.

We can use the distinction between primary and secondary human nature

to understand how virtue theorists walk the tightrope.

On classical theories of the virtues, such as Aristotle's, a morally
well-ordered second nature is a manner of realizing an end
intrinsic to man's primary nature. The latter is constituted of a
complex group of capacities and powers. The former is an
ordering or disposing of them in specific ways.32

Virtue theorists argue that there is an end shared by all human beings,
qua human being. That end provides the anchor around which social
critiques can be developed. That end is often referred to as human
flourishing and is described in terms of the "capacities and powers" possessed
by all human beings. There are perhaps an infinite number of ways that
human communities might develop the conventions and institutions, i. e.

second nature, within which human flourishing might occur. I hope these

 

32Jacobs, Jonathan, "Practical Wisdom, Objectivity and Relativism," American
Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 26, Number 3, July 1989, p. 200.

58

introductory comments suffice to indicate that MacIntyre's historical account
need not be immediately dismissed as leading to a relativism which is
incapable of providing a critique of current social conditions. Indeed,
MacIntyre is drawn to rehabilitate Aristotle's moral theory because he
recognizes the inadequacy of present conditions to support human
flourishing and the ability of agents to function as coherent moral agents. In
this chapter I will explore MacIntyre's conception of the self, his indictment of
modernity and his conception of a community which could be the condition
of coherent moral agency. I will evaluate MacIntyre's arguments and the
usefulness of his concepts. I will consider the model of ethical agency implied
in MacIntyre's views and present two inconsistencies in his analysis of

modernity and modern ethical agency.

The Narrative Self

In After Virtue, MacIntyre argues that moral argumentation is
interminable because the language of moral debate is hopelessly disordered.
We lack a background of moral consensus which could function as a stable
point in discussion of particular moral problem situations. In moral debate,
terms are employed whose meanings are distorted because they have been
abstracted from contexts and traditions which were partially constitutive of
their meanings. Furthermore, arguments employing terms from one moral
tradition are set against arguments employing terms from a different moral
tradition. Arguments are incommensurable and not amendable to rational
discussion. Thus MacIntyre usefully draws attention to the language of
contemporary moral discourse as itself an obstacle to moral argumentation.

His focus on language and the linguistic dimension of human interaction is

59

extended to his discussion of the self. MacIntyre's focus on the linguistic
dimension provides him with a way to relate issues of the self, community
and agency in a fruitful way.

MacIntyre argues that the self is inherently historical and that the
development of a conception of our selves is crucially linguistic. Knowing
who we are involves knowing ourselves as characters in the stories which are
our lives. Thus, if we are to be coherent moral agents, we must be able to tell
a coherent story about what we did or will do. The setting of the story which
is a human life is a historical human community. We learn who we are by
discovering our roles in our communities and discover what we ought to do
by learning what is appropriate for someone having that role to do. The idea
of storytelling is important for defining moral terms. MacIntyre argues that

the meaning of moral terms can only be conveyed in the context of stories.

It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost
children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin
boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make
their own way in the world and eldest sons who waste their
inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the
swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and
what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama
into which they have been born and what the ways of the world
are. Deprive children of stories and you leave them unscripted,
anxious stutterers in their actions as in their words. Hence there
is no way to give us an understanding of any society, including
our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute its
initial dramatic resources.33

MacIntyre calls his conception of the self the 'narrative concept of
selfhood'. The key notions in this conception are setting, intelligible action
and accountability. MacIntyre focuses on our roles as actors, story-tellers and

authors. If we want to understand what it is to be a self, we must understand

 

33Maclntyre, p. 216.

60

what selves do. To be a self is be co-author of the story of one's own life. Any
human life is made up of innumerable actions. To understand any one of
those actions we must consider the setting within which it occurs and we
must be aware of the short and longer-term intentions of the actor.
Describing even the simplest human action, for instance, planting a tulip in a
garden, involves us in ascribing beliefs and intentions to the planter. The
planter plants because he or she wants a tulip to grow in that particular spot;
the planter expects the tulip to grow if planted properly. If a squirrel digs up
the tulip, then the response of the planter to that occurrence can only be
intelligible in light of the planter's beliefs and intentions. The planter's
action of planting a tulip would become even more intelligible if we knew of
the planter's longer-term goal of creating a pleasant garden. It is "more
intelligible" because we might now be able to answer more of the questions
we might ask about the planting of the tulip. Now we can begin to
understand why the planter chose this particular color of tulip or why the
planter chose this particular spot to plant the tulip. We can even begin to
understand why some of our questions are relevant and some are not.
MacIntyre's point is that in explaining any particular action we become
involved in relating a narrative. We explain by constructing the story within
which the action becomes intelligible. The narrative must include a reference
to the setting within which the action occurs. Furthermore, by invoking
intentions and expectations, the narrative involves a certain teleological

character.

There is no present which is not informed by some image of
some future and an image of the future which always presents
itself in the form of a telos - or of a variety of ends or goals -

61

towards which we are either moving or failing to move in the
present.34

Thus, to be a self is to be a lived narrative, i.e. to be the co-author of a
living story which is the tale of action rendered intelligible by its teleological
character and particular historical and social location. We are only the co-
authors of our lives instead of the single authors because we enter a setting
which pre-existed us and thus the stage of our lives is already largely
determined by factors which will constrain what story we can create. Also,
the natural world is somewhat unpredictable due to our lack of knowledge
and the limitations of time. Worse, the actions of the human beings which
share our setting and contribute to it are in principle not strictly predictable.35

What follows from the narrative conception of selfhood is that persons
are accountable for their actions. Because our actions are intelligible and
teleological we can be expected to account for them. I can be held accountable,
not just for today's action but for yesterday's or last year's because I am the co-
author of a continuing story which is the story of my entire life. My own past
actions become part of the setting for my future self. Thus, the narrative
conception of selfhood provides for a way of conceiving of a person's life as a
unity. I may be a very different person than I was twenty years ago, but I am
still the co-author of the actions I performed then and those actions are part of
the story which is my entire life. Similarly, we can hold other people
accountable for their actions only because of the narrative character of human

life.

 

34Ibid.. pp. 215 - 216.
35Ibid.. pp. 88 - 108.

62

The Self and Community

MacIntyre's view of the self connects the issues of agency and community.
Our moral starting point is always given to us by our historical community.
Our very sense of who we are is permeated with relations with others which

are not chosen and which are imbued with moral implications.

I am someone's son or daughter, someone else's cousin or
uncle; I am a citizen of this or that city, a member of this or that
guild or profession; I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation.
Hence what is good for me has to be the good for one who
inhabits these roles. As such, I inherit from the past of my
family, my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts,
inheritances, rightful expectations and obligations. These
constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point.36

This view of the self assumes that selfliood is a distinctively social concept.
One cannot be a self if one has not been brought up within a community and
developed an identity which is distinctively social. This means that one has
relations with others. Those relations can be expressed in terms of roles,
goals, obligations and what is owed to one by others. Since these notions
cannot be described without using value expressions such as 'ought', it is
clear that to be a person on this account is to be inherently a moral being.
Furthermore, these concepts are functional concepts. This means for
MacIntyre that on the basis of agreement upon the obligations and duties
owed which define any role, objective claims can be made about whether the
bearer of the role has fulfilled those obligations or received duties owed.
Thus, the correct understanding of what it is to be a person leads to the
conclusion that moral issues are an objective matter. Our conception of the

self is thus important, especially if we relate this issue to our previous

 

36Ibid., p. 220.

63

comments about the connection between the contemporary disorder of moral

discourse and what it is to be a self.

To call a particular action just or right is to say that it is what a
good man would do in such a situation; hence this type of
statement too is factual. Within this tradition moral and
evaluative statements can be called true or false in precisely the
way in which all other factual statements can be so called. But
once the notion of essential human purposes or functions
disappears from morality, it begins to appear implausible to treat
moral judgments as factual statements.37

According to MacIntyre, the notion of moral obligation was originally a
notion which was part of a moral tradition in which it was accepted that to be
human was to have a necessary connection to a community in which all
members had roles whose meanings were intersubjectively secured. These
roles were defined in terms of clear obligations. Part of the disorder of
contemporary moral discourse is that the notion of 'human being' and
'ought' have been abstracted from this tradition, which the modern world
owns as part of its history. Once the idea, that was already present in the
Stoics, that the self was self-defining and not primarily a member of a
particular historical community came to have theoretical and practical
hegemony, the concept of morality developed above continued to live on in
distorted concepts. Recall that I have argued that one cannot derive practical
moral implications from the view of ethics which derives from the Stoics and
Kant. Given this, MacIntyre darkly concludes that moral discourse currently
functions only to bully and manipulate. True moral reasons refer to roles
and a particular conception of what it is to be a person. Without these, what

passes for reasons can only be the masks for manipulation.

 

37Ibid., p. 59.

64

MacIntyre does not think that it is an accident that the disorder of moral
discourse occurred. He connects it with the contemporary modern way of life.
In order to understand his social critique, it is necessary to first discuss his

conception of a practice.

By a 'practice' I am going to mean any coherent and complex
form of socially established cooperative human activity through
which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the
course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which
are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of
activity, with the result that human powers to achieve
excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods
involved, are systematically extended.38

An internal good is one which can be achieved only through participation
in the related practice. An internal good is contrasted with an external good.
An example of an external good is money. Money can be obtained in a great
variety of ways, for instance working, cheating, stealing, borrowing,
counterfeiting, etc. An example of an internal good is the enjoyment of
performing a piece of music well. I may be able to achieve the renown
associated with being an excellent pianist by blackrnailing critics or paying off
an audience,lbut I cannot actually be an excellent pianist unless I practice the
piano and become the person who is an excellent pianist. Being an excellent
pianist is an example of a practice. The notion of a practice is important to
MacIntyre's conception of a virtue because the exercise of the virtues is
required in order to participate in a practice. To become an excellent pianist I
must become or be a virtuous person. Justice, honesty and courage are key
virtues. Without these no one can proceed to actually become a participant in
a practice. The virtues of justice, honesty and courage enable persons to

recognize their shortcomings in the exercise of any art, sport or other kind of

 

33Ibid., p. 187.

65

practice and act to overcome them. We only become excellent in any practice
by accepting the rules of the practice and submitting ourselves to the
achievement of them. Thus, in entering a practice we submit ourselves to a
tradition which is the accumulated standards of judgment and procedure of
the practice. In order to achieve the internal goods of enjoyment, pleasure,
self-expression and competence which accompany participation in a practice
and find their unique manifestations in particular practices, one must accept
the canon of the practice and become virtuous. Thus MacIntyre emphasizes
the need for a tradition as a field in which human life can be joyfully and
fully lived. In light of this- view of human well-being, the challenge of
Nietzsche to creatively make our own way and values can only seem a call to
enter a nether-world in which nothing can be distinctly seen or known. To
someone of MacIntyre's persuasion, it is as though Nietzsche invites us to
make a pot, but places us in a world without clay. MacIntyre's debt is to Hegel
as well as Aristotle. It was Hegel who suggested the need for a resisting
material to give us an opportunity to change ourselves by laboring on it.

The point of MacIntyre's discussion of a practice is to reveal the
connection between the enjoyment of the good life and the cultivation of the
virtues. The two end up to be one and the same endeavor. Here MacIntyre is
clearly Aristotelian. To be a person is to engage in the process of living well.
The virtues are the key to living well. They have a critical dimension because
they give us a basis for judging the adequacy of our communities to foster the
development of the virtues in its members. While agency necessarily relies
on community, a community may be more or less adequate as the condition

for coherent agency.

66

MacIntyre's Material Analysis

MacIntyre argues that one crucial reason why contemporary communities
cannot be the condition for true ethical agency is because their institutions are
no longer the bearers of practices. MacIntyre introduces an analysis of the
material conditions of life in order to locate a key moment in the history of

the downfall of communities as conditions for fostering the virtues.

One of the key moments in the creation of modernity occurs
when production moves outside the household. So long as
productive work occurs within the structure of households, it is
easy and right to understand that work as part of the sustaining
of the community of the household and of those wider forms of
community which the household in turn sustains. As, and to
the extent that, work moves outside the household and is put to
the service of impersonal capital, the realm of work tends to
become separated from everything but the service of biological
survival and the reproduction of the labor force, on the one
hand, and that of institutionalized acquisitiveness, on the
other.39 '-

When the household was the locus of economic activity, persons tended
to produce goods or provide services for their own families and their local
communities. This enabled workers to see their work as directly tied to the
good of their communities. The blacksmith would see his handiwork
enjoyed by his neighbors. The miller worked for his neighbors. The needs of
the community were met largely by persons who could be identified as
community members. Seeing the fruits of one's labor benefiting one's
community gives a sense of connectedness among the members of the
community. Neighbors are not simply accidentally connected by proximity as
they are in contemporary communities. Community members need and rely

upon one another in waysnot currently experienced. This provides a sense

 

39Ibid., p. 227.

67

of real community and may be the basis of seeing one's own good as
internally related to the good of others. The modern view of the self as an
isolated atom which is not internally related to the members of its
community can thus be related to this material reality. This view of the self
truly represents modern individuals. However, this truth and the reality it
expresses can be seen as the product of material conditions which are not
necessary. MacIntyre does not clearly state these conclusions, but they are
implied in the argument he does make.

Pre—capitalist households are not merely places of rest, but centers of
material production as well as family life and thus the basis for an experience
of human life as having a unity. Perhaps more importantly, in capitalist
societies work outside the home is predominately not experienced as an
opportunity for the enjoyment of internal goods. The unity of effort, pride
and enjoyment of the result of work is largely absent from the working
conditions of most contemporary workers. Thus, modern productive activity
is not the occasion for a practice in MacIntyre's sense. MacIntyre clearly relies

on Marx for these insights.

We arrive at the result that man (the worker) feels himself to be
freely active only in his animal functions - eating, drinking and
procreating, or at most also in his dwelling and in personal
adornment - while in his human functions he is reduced to an
animal. The animal becomes human and the human becomes
animal.40

The result for MacIntyre is that work is removed as an opportunity for the
pursuit of internal goods and thus for the development of the virtues. The
only realms which remain for practices are science and art and these are not

enjoyed by the great majority of persons. This constitutes a sweeping

 

40Marx, p. 125.

68

indictment of modernity. One would expect that MacIntyre would end After
Virtue with an appeal for the end of capitalism. However, he does not.
Instead, he vaguely calls for "the construction of local forms of community
within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained
through the new dark ages which are already upon us."41 Either he is so
pessimistic about the possibility of abandoning capitalism that he does not
find it worth suggesting or, he has not realized the implications of his
analysis. Let me briefly restate three premises relevant to this part of
MacIntyre's argument. (1) Coherent ethical agency depends on communities
within which the virtues can flourish. (2) Capitalist market economy is
destructive of communities which could support the virtues. (3) The moral
tradition of the virtues is the only one which can support coherent ethical
agency. Given these premises, the conclusion would seem to be that, if we
desire coherent ethical agency, then capitalist market economy must go.
MacIntyre has located a material base for the problematic state of moral
argumentation in the contemporary world. MacIntyre's appeal for local
forms of community, without addressing the issue of the material causes he
has established, is inconsistent and cannot be productive on his own account.
His appeal in the book following After Virtue, Whose justice? Which
Rationality? 42, similarly ignores his own analysis in his new stress of the
importance of church authority in creating a viable moral community. The
general criticism which can be made of MacIntyre along these lines is that he

ignores his own claim that history matters in the production of moral

 

41MacIntyre, p. 263.

42MacIntyre, Alasdair, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, (Notre Dame,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1988).

69

communities and moral meanings. Another way of saying this is that
MacIntyre mixes ideological and material analyses in a capricious way.
MacIntyre does indicate a kind of solution for the failure of contemporary
moral reflection which elaborates on his call for "local forms of community"
and which may provide an answer to the puzzle of why MacIntyre does not
explicitly follow through on his material analysis. I would like to turn to that
now. In MacIntyre's discussion of the connection between the virtues and
practices, in his comments about the lack of moral consensus and in his
connection of socially recognized roles and objective moral claims, it is clear
that he is arguing for a community characterized by organic unity as the
condition for true moral agency. The shattering of the unity of an individual

life and the shattering of the unity of community life are related.

. modernity partitions each human life into a variety of
segments, each with its own norms and modes of behavior. So
work .is divided from leisure, private life from public, the
corporate from the personal. So both childhood and old age
have been wrenched away from the rest of human life and made
over into distinct realms. And all these separations have been
achieved so that it is the distinctiveness of each and not the
unity of the life of the individual who passes through those
parts in terms of which we are taught to think and to feel.43

The partitioning of modern life is significant because it impedes an
individual's ability to think of him or herself as a narrative unity. Recall
MacIntyre's insistence on the narrative conception of the self. He argued that
human lives are only intelligible as stories in which each person is the subject
of his or her story. This conception of personhood has the virtue of
intimately connecting moral agency with the idea of what it is to be a person.

Because our lives are narratives which have a beginning, ending, and

 

43MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 204.

70

subplots along the way, we can make sense of holding others and ourselves
accountable for actions. To ask someone to give an account of their actions is
to ask for the story within which the action was done. This story must
include reference to intentions and the actual results of actions. We have
seen that MacIntyre argues for communities within which practices can be
pursued. Practices are necessary for the development of the virtues and the
human end of living well. Indeed, Aristotelian moral categories, and
MacIntyre is providing a modified Aristotelian view, are not autonomous in
respect to the notion of human happiness or flourishing. The Kantian
tradition severs the issues of happiness of moral action, but the Aristotelian
does not. In the Aristotelian tradition, one will be happy when one is
performing one's function. Happiness is supervenient on excellence. Moral
evaluations of actions indicate whether or not one is acting in such a way that
one's happiness will be assured. The tricky part here is that one's happiness
often involves others. Indeed, there is a tension in Aristotle between the life
of the philosopher who has little need for others and Aristotle's conception of
the human being as an inherently social animal. Even the contemplative life
of the philosopher assumes the existence of a well-ordered community and
others with whom one can discuss philosophical contemplation. Individual
happiness is intimately tied up with the well-orderedness of one's
community. Having a well-ordered community means that everyone does
his or her part. Thus, contra the experience of modems, individual
happiness and fulfilling one's duties so that one's community can be
sustained are inherently related. The difficulty comes in the fact that one's
roles and duties are multiple. Even in the pre-modern world one could be

faced with a multiplicity of roles and practices. Even in a community which

ade;
once

after

Con:

con]

“1b.

7l

adequately fostered the virtues, persons engage in more than one practice at
once. This may result in conflicting demands made on one person who
attempts excellence in all the practices in which he or she engages. For
instance, the life of a painter may take time away from the life of a parent or
spouse. The notion of a practice gives no way of coordinating or establishing
a hierarchy among the demands of diverse practices and thus throws the
person back on apparently criterionless choices which are the nemesis of
moral life. Thus, the problem of the partitioning of modern life and the
conflicting principles mentioned earlier, has a parallel even in pre-modern
life and requires a solution.

This problem indicates the need to have a wider context. MacIntyre argues
that this wider context is provided by the narrative conception of a self plus
the notion of the telos of a single human life. The wider context within
which persons can arrange the pursuit of the goods internal to the practices in
which they participate is in terms of the telos of a single human life. By
having a single conception of the overarching goal at which one aims, one
can see the particular practices engaged in as subsumed under this single goal.
The telos will then provide an objective means by which ordering of
conflicting practices can be done as well as providing a basis for change within
a practice and the recognition of some practices as evil. MacIntyre articulates
this telos as "the life spent in seeking for the good life for man."44

The notion of a practice and the notion of the narrative unity of a human
life are part of MacIntyre's three-part reconstruction of the concept of virtue.
These two parts must be augmented by yet another notion in order to

complete the core conception of virtue. An individual's life story necessarily

 

44Ibid., 219.

72

involves other people. An individual's story is not a soliloquy but an enacted
narrative in which other people are crucial actors. An individual cannot
engage in a practice in complete isolation. Also, our stories are often
interrupted or altered by other's expected or unexpected participation in
them. An individual's telos is thus necessarily interrelated with the telos of
others. Given this fact, a single telos for a single individual is inadequate.
What is required is a telos of human beings as such. This wider context
finally provides the backdrop for an objective evaluation of choices and
actions. The telos for human beings is a quest for the good of human beings
as such. This quest will be informed by a moral tradition. It is the absence of
a shared moral tradition which is responsible for the current plight of ethics
today. A moral tradition, in turn, is not a free-floating entity which can be
discerned rationally or invented through the free consent and choice of a
people. It is grounded in pre-existing ways of life and in the ongoing
locations and accompanying commitments of the social and historical
situations into which we are all born. MacIntyre points out that we are all
bearers of a moral tradition and that this moral tradition can be perceived in
the circumstances of our social identities.

I think we can now explicate MacIntyre's conception of a community
which is adequate as the condition for coherent moral agency. It must be one
in which practices can be pursued, persons can experience their lives as a
unity and all members share a single moral tradition. Furthermore, it must
be one in which there are clearly defined social roles which are the backdrop
of moral discussion. It must have institutions which are the bearers of
practices. Now the question must be whether or not the modern world can be

the place for such communities. Given that MacIntyre locates market

73

economy as the distinctive feature that begets the fragmentation characteristic
of modernity, we must ask whether or not MacIntyre finds it necessary to
argue explicitly for the end of market economies and if not, why not. If the
recognition of the telos of an individual human life could provide a way of
ordering conflicting practices within the tradition of the virtues, then perhaps
it can do the same within a market economy. Resolving these issues will lead
us to the more pressing questions of whether or not MacIntyre's conception
of the self and community are viable for the modern world and if they
indicate the necessity for a thorough-going rejection of modernity.

Resolving the questions raised above involves answering the following
questions. (1) What is the difference between a traditional society and a
modern (or postmodern) society? (2) Can we return to a pre-modern society?
(3) Is it necessary in order to have coherent moral agency to return to a

traditional society? I will address these questions in turn.

Traditional Society
I would like to begin by looking at what MacIntyre says about tradition.

To appeal to tradition is to insist that we cannot adequately
identify either our own commitments or those of others in the
argumentative conflicts of the present except by situating them
within those histories which made them what they have now
become.45

MacIntyre is making the very reasonable point that problems are imbued
with the particular meaning they have only in light of a past which
constrains how the situation can be interpreted. This is not an extraordinary
claim. It is good advice. However, this approach to problem evaluation does

not imply an indictment of modernity. Surely even in the contemporary

 

45Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Whose Rationality?, p. 13.

74

world we can evaluate conflicts in terms of their histories and obtain a deeper
understanding of our commitments by examining the history of such
commitments. We do not need to abandon the contemporary world or
retreat anywhere in order to do this or even to do it fairly well. There must
be something more that MacIntyre is calling for.

The distinctive feature of modernity, and the same holds true for
postmodernity, that MacIntyre is concerned with is the fragmentation of
contemporary life which he claims makes it impossible for persons to
conceive of their lives as a unity. Such a conception is the second part of his
description of the core conception of a virtue. The first part was the notion of
a practice. He claimed that the notion of a practice was not sufficient to
establish the core conception of a virtue. One reason he offered for its
insufficiency was that persons may engage in more than one practice at once.
If one can conceive of one's life as oriented to a single goal, then the diverse
practices can be ordered by the standard this introduces. However, the
divisions of modern life make it impossible for us to conceive of our lives as
a unity and thus as aiming at one thing as a single goal. Thus, the
divergences of practices must be of a different sort than the divergences in
modern life. MacIntyre must make clear what the difference in kind is
between the differences introduced by multiple practices which can be unified
by the conception of a telos for a single human life, and the multiplicity of
modern life. I find MacIntyre dealing with this dilemma in two different
ways: one way really does indicate the necessity to return to a traditional
society and the other does not.

MacIntyre argues that since one enacts one's life in a drama which always

includes others, the telos of a single human life necessarily leads to the

75

notion of a telos for human beings as such. That shared telos will be
particularized within historical communities. The community provides the
larger framework within which one can live. Thus, there is a hierarchy here:
good for human beings as such, good for community, good for individual.
The community has established, before individuals come on to the scene,
what the available roles for each individual are. We are, then, already
defined by our communities in terms of the obligations into which we are

born. This is our moral starting point.

In many pre-modern, traditional societies it is through his or her
membership in a variety of social groups that the individual
identifies himself or herself and is identified by others. I am
brother, cousin and grandson, member of this household, that
village, this tribe. These are not characteristics that belong to
human beings accidentally, to be stripped away in order to
discover 'the real me'. They are part of my substance, defining
partially at least and sometimes wholly my obligations and my
duties.46

Here MacIntyre indicates what he has in mind as a traditional society. It is
one in which social roles take on the character of givenness. The society must
have an organic unity which provides the basis for coherent moral decisions.
Moral matters become objective because of the high degree of social
consensus which is obtained by the level to which individuals accept their
identities as established by social roles. The question, "what should I do?" is
answered by first answering the question, "who am I?" which is answered by
determining what my role is in my community. One does not have to think
much about what the right action is. The right action is circumscribed by the
demands of one's role. Here, we can see how the plurality of the modern

world is destructive in a way that the plurality of practices within a traditional

 

46MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 33.

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society need not be. The traditional society already prioritizes our obligations
for us. The conflicting principles I described above as inscribed in modern
spheres do not exist in a traditional society which must be based on internal
coherence. The correct action must flow from consideration of one's role and
situation just as it is "necessary" to move one's chess piece to only a single
square if one is in a game where that move is the only move which will
result in Checkmate. Thus, a traditional society is one in which there must be
a high level of coherence of social roles and options. If it has the real conflicts
which are present in modern societies, it cannot function to provide the
conditions for coherent agency. The difference between the kind of
traditional society MacIntyre requires and modern society is that a traditional
society is characterized by an organic unity while a modern society is
characterized by fragmentation. Thus, according to MacIntyre's analysis,
modernity really must be abandoned if there is any hope of establishing the
conditions for coherent agency.

In Whose justice? Whose Rationality?, MacIntyre seems to indicate that
we need not return to a pre-modern world not characterized by conflicting
and fragmenting spheres. This is possible if we accept the authority of the
Catholic Church. Presumably, such acceptance will provide us with a way of
making coherent choices. Here the givenness of the traditional community
which provides the basis for choice is replaced by the givenness of the
Catholic Church.

Can We Return to a Pre-Modern Society?
The trite, though true, answer to this question is a simple "no." The

salient feature of traditional society is that it is not something that one can

77

choose. If one does not find oneself in a society within which tradition
provides concrete and definitive roles and a coherent framework, one cannot
choose to become a member of one. What is most debilitating about
modernity is that it provides choices which are groundless. One cannot
choose to become a member of a traditional society. One may form local
groups within which one strives to establish such a society, but this effort is
vitiated by the fact that one it cannot have in place the kind of coherent,
organic unity of roles and thinking which characterize a truly traditional
society. I can remove myself from a "chosen" tradition in a way a truly
traditional person could not.

While MacIntyre claims to be sensitive to history and find it necessary to
understand current problems in the light of history, his historical account is
rather sketchy and selective. If we turn to Weber to complete the historical
account, we may find the connection between his apparently different
solutions: return to traditional society or embrace the authority of the
Catholic Church. Weber explains the process of modernization in terms of
'disenchantment'. Persons are interested in understanding their
environment. The different ways in which they structure their explanations
can be compared. Traditional societies are those which explain through
myths or magical thinking. This kind of explanation contrasts with modern
scientific thinking and explanations. Modernization comes about as societies
grow, become more complex and enjoy an increasing level of specialization
and differentiation. The growth and concentration of the human population
brought about the difference between city and country and the need to have
farming as a specialization. Ways of life have developed such that people do

not produce all of their needs for themselves but depend on an intricate and

78

widespread set of interrelations in order to have their needs met. We now
enjoy the fruits of specialists in the arts, sciences and a realm of endeavors.
As people become specialists in providing for the complex needs of society,
different spheres of endeavor and ways of structuring reality separate off and
become autonomous. One thinks as an artist in a way different from the
politician or the scientist. This brief history indicates that the fragmentation
of modern society can be traced back the increasing size of societies and the
improved abilities to provide for the basic needs of persons and thus create
the leisure for concerns beyond basic survival. Concomitant with the
differentiation of these spheres of endeavor, norms and principles specific to
each developed. These are the conflicting realms of the contemporary world.
Again, it would seem that if this historical picture is correct, it is impossible to
return to a traditional society unless we are willing to give up large societies,
surplus and the well-developed divisions between political activity, art,
religion, science, economic activity and pleasure. MacIntyre himself notes
that these divisions were not clearly made in ancient Greece.47 MacIntyre's
solution of a common telos is an idealist solution to a historically and
materially rooted problem.

Habermas reconstructs this history in a way that reintroduces the question
of the conception of the self by explicitly discussing the changes in subjectivity
which accompanied these historical developments. Modern subjectivity is
characterized by its ability to differentiate among three basic orientations: the

objective, the social and the subjective.48 The objective world is delimited as

 

47Ibid., p. 138.
48Habermas, Jurgen, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One,

Reason and the Rationalization of Society, translated by Thomas McCarthy
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), p. 52.

m

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the world of external facts which can be determined through instrumental
reason. This is the world which science investigates. The social world is the
cultural world of intersubjectively secured norms and meanings. Ethics is
concerned with this world. The subjective world is the expressive world of
art.

The lack of clear differentiation of these worlds can be seen in many
examples of the world of the past. In ancient China, a volcano or severe
storm was interpreted as indicating that the Emperor was no longer worthy of
serving. Here there is confusion about the objective world and the social
world. In the Western tradition, not until late Renaissance art do we find the
aesthetic sphere functioning autonomously from religious traditions and art
works being bought and sold in the market. These differentiations are
associated with the increased rationalization and universalization.

In traditional societies, like that romantically yearned for by MacIntyre,
there is a lack of differentiation between the objective world and the social
world. Another way of saying this is that nature and culture are not clearly
distinguished. Thus, the organic unity of traditional society has a given
quality which cannot quite be raised to the level of explicit consciousness and

made the object of question.

In traditional societies, worldviews (and contexts of action and
interpretation) are more or less completely fixed in the spell of
religious cosmologies and, at the same time, the stuctural (sic)
correlates of the lifeworld are fixed in traditional kinship
structures and in the economic structures of subsistence
agricultural production. Under these circumstances the
background convictions that guide interaction and
communication come into play in a highly reified and 'nature-
like' way.49

 

49Pusey, Michael, Jurgen Habermas (New York: Ellis Horwood Limited, 1987),
p. 60.

80

For MacIntyre's traditional society to provide a context within which
social norms can appear as objective, social roles cannot be subject to scrutiny.
The fact that Jones is a daughter indicates that certain things are expected of
her and due to her. MacIntyre treats this as if it were an objective matter, just
like some fact of nature. The differentiation of objective world, social world
and subjective world are features of modern subjectivity which cannot simply
be discarded. Once we have achieved the competence to think in these ways,
we cannot simply turn our backs on this achievement and choose not to do
so. MacIntyre engages in bad faith in his romantic desire to reject the
achievements of modernity. Here a new conception of the self is suggested: a
specifically modern self characterized by the irreversible achievement of these
three basic orientations.

In traditional societies, the differentiation between social world and
subjective world is not clearly made. It is not clear that an individual can
present to him or herself a realm of thoughts and feelings which are
distinctively his or hers as opposed to being continuous with the social world

or the objective world.

Only to the extent that the formal concept of an external world
develops - of an objective world of existing states of affairs and of
a social world of norms - can the complementary concept of the
internal world or of subjectivity arise, that is, a world to which
the individual has privileged access and to which everything is
attributed that cannot be incorporated in the external world.
Only against the background of an objective world, and
measured against criticizable claims to truth and efficacy, can
beliefs appear as systematically false, action intentions as
systematically hopeless, and thoughts as fantasies, as mere
imaginings.50

 

50Habermas, p. 51.

81

The close identification of self and social roles which MacIntyre seems to
think is necessary for coherent moral agency reflects a pre-modern
understanding of the self which has not entirely differentiated the objective,
social and subjective worlds. The "ghostly" self MacIntyre attributes to Kant
is a self which can distance itself from its given social roles. This is the
distinctively modern self. Habermas' view of the self relies on the work by
Weber which posed the differentiation of spheres in the modern world. This
differentiation is reflected in modern subjectivity. If Habermas is right about
linking this modern self with the historical account of Weber, then returning
to a traditional world or traditional selves. Habermas thinks the modern self
is an advance of the traditional self. Whether this is true or not, retreat to a

pre-modern world does not seem to be a live option.

Is the Pre-Modern World the Only Condition for Moral Agency?

Whether or not it is possible to abandon modernity, it might be the case
that modernity cannot support coherent moral agency. We have seen that
the fragmentation of the modern world is not a peripheral feature of it that
might be repaired, but a constitutive feature. The question remains whether
or not such a society can be one which can support coherent moral agency.

MacIntyre envisioned a society of organic unity in which each member
had an immediate relationship with that society. Clearly, the modern world
is far from having this kind of immediacy. Given that we appear to be stuck
in the modern world, we should turn our attention to possibilities for
overcoming the diremptions of the modern world which MacIntyre
accurately represents as disrupting communities and impairing agency.

MacIntyre's view has the benefit of recognizing the importance of history in

82

the formation of values. His conception of the self as a narrative is fruitful
and represents a way of conceiving of agency which is lacking in Kant. I-Iis
conception of the importance of community as the condition for agency is
fruitful. However, his introduction of the notion of a telos for each
individual as well as for human being as such, seems unnecessary. Larmore
has argued that this move on the part of MacIntyre represents a mistaken
introduction of epistemological foundationalism into ethics.51 What is
important to retain from MacIntyre is the issue of relationship of individuals
to community. MacIntyre shapes this relationship in a way which does not
do justice to modern subjectivity. Moderns are able to distance themselves
from their communities. MacIntyre errs in accepting Kant's apparent
conclusion that modern subjectivity is severed from its community.

Our challenge now is to conceive of a viable modern community which
can be the basis for individuals who are able to shift among differentiated
spheres. What can be the basis of identity for a modern community?
MacIntyre's organic community provided the condition for coherent agency,
but modern communities are discontinuous and made of spheres which are
not internally related to one another. As a seeming alternative to return to a
lost traditional society, MacIntyre suggests the Catholic Church as an
institution which can mediate, through its authority, the diverse spheres of
modernity. Thus, he points to mediating institutions as possible ways of
providing the cohesiveness necessary for modern coherent agency. However,
appeal to religion fails as the basis of modern communities if only because
modern communities are made up of people of diverse faiths or a purely

secular orientation. Although MacIntyre's candidate for mediating

 

51Larmore, Charles 13., Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), pp. 28 - 29.

83

institution fails, the idea is sound. In the next chapter I will turn to Hegel
who explicitly argues for the state as the mediating institution which could
have a role similar to that envisioned by MacIntyre. Hegel's secular
institution seems more appropriate for a largely 'disenchanted' world.

MacIntyre's central notion of a moral tradition was insufficient in part
because it represented a purely ideological solution for what MacIntyre
proposed as a situation at least partially caused by material conditions. While
ideological and material elements interact, it does not seem to make for a
good explanation to simply raise material issues and then drop them forever.
If Hegel's solution is to succeed, it must better integrate ideological and
material accounts.

If modern individuals are to be coherent agents, then some social force
must enable them to overcome the diremptions of social differentiations. In
MacIntyre, the individual mirrors the coherence or lack of coherence of the
society. MacIntyre's conception of the unity of an individual needs to be
reconstructed so that it makes sense given the achievements of modern
subjectivity. Hegel's suggestion is that the state provides the modern
individual a way of mediating the conflicting spheres of modernity in such a
way that the individual can move through the various spheres with their
conflicting rationalities and yet not dissolve into a set of selves without any

unity to orient coherent action and valuation.

The Practical Syllogism or Rational Deliberation
I began this work by noting the current state of ethical agency. It is
characteristic of modernity and postrnodernity that persons live and act

within a variety of spheres which provide motivations and principles for

84

action which conflict with one another and thus undermine the validity of
all. The coherence of the self as agent is undermined in the same stroke.
Four crucial and related questions can now be articulated and addressed. Are
the differentiations characteristic of modernity fatal to ethical agency? Can
the notion of autonomy be rehabilitated in such a way that the importance of
history and community for ethical agency are incorporated into it? How is
agency possible? If agency is socially conditioned, under what conditions is
agency possible?

The close relation of these last two questions can be seen in the following
interpretation of the historical view of the self and agency. The view of the
self as a historical product can easily devolve into a mechanical view of the
self. Here we imagine the self as consisting of the following three parts: a
window which lets in experiences; a sorter which sorts the experiences in
accord with principles derived from earlier experiences, and a stacking device
which loads the sorted experiences onto the appropriate mental shelves for
later retrieval and consultation. To be an agent, according to this model, is to
mechanically categorize incoming data and deduce the correct action from the
stores of past experiences. Indeed, 'choice' as arrived at from conducting a
practical syllogism provokes this image. What is missing in this picture is
any conception of freedom or agency as activity. The notion of the freedom of
the agent and agency as activity are linked. To 'freely choose' has a different
connotation than 'to deduce a necessary result'. To freely choose is to arrive
at a conclusion following engaged, rational deliberation. The agent is not
peripheral to the process of rational deliberation. Two different choices made
by a single agent in a single situation might result and be defended as the

result of rational deliberation by the reconstruction of two different

85

narratives. To be an agent is not simply to be a warehouse for one's
experiences. An adequate conception of agency must account for the
historicity of the self without reduction to such a mechanical view.

In his eagerness to establish an objective basis for ethical judgment,
MacIntyre succumbs to the'mechanical view of agency. MacIntyre argues that
the meaning of 'good' has changed and with that change moral judgments

have ceased to be factual statements.

Within the Aristotelian tradition to call x good (where x may be
among others things a person or an animal or a policy or a state
of affairs) is to say that it is the kind of x which someone would
choose who wanted an x for the purpose for which x 's are
characteristically wanted. To call a watch good is to say that it is
the kind of watch which someone would choose who wanted a
watch to keep time accurately (rather than, say, to throw at the
cat). The presupposition of this use of 'good' is that every type of
item which it is appropriate to call good or bad - including
persons and actions - has, as a matter of fact, some given specific
purpose or function.52

MacIntyre claims that ethical language originated at a time when it was
accepted that human beings had an essential function and that the particular
roles a person had also were clearly defined in terms of function. Thus,
moral evaluations of persons and ethical choices were all factual matters.
Given this view of ethical evaluation, it seems clear that a computer might
deduce the correct moral judgment as well as a person. What is disturbing
about this view is that it eliminates the need for deliberation. There seems to

be no need for an agent at all. Agency is reduced to mere calculation.53 If

 

52MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 59.

53See Martha Nussbaum, "Recoiling from Reason," The New York Review,
December 7, 1989, p. 37 for a critical discussion of MacIntyre and Aristotle on
rational deliberation and the practical syllogism.

86

Spinning out practical syllogisms is the model of ethical agency, then the
agent as a unique, active individual is lost.

In rational deliberation, which might result in more than one defensible
choice, the agent is actively involved. The activity of the agent is apparent
because in the reconstruction of rational deliberation the agent demonstrates
how his or her own self-conception is involved. The process of rational
deliberation often involves a reappraisal of the agent's self-conception and
may involve a change in the agent's self-concept. Thus, in going through
rational deliberation an agent might go through a process of self-change. The
story of the agent's past may be understood in a new way given the
provocations of the situation which calls for rational deliberation. Thus, in
rational deliberation as the model of ethical choice, the temporality of the
agent is invoked. The notions of autonomy, as self-determination, and
narrative are linked through the process of self-recreation for which a
situation demanding ethical choice functions as occasion. The choice to be
acted on in the future can only be presented as the result of the rational
deliberation of an agent given that particular agent's past. Thus the moment
of choice is a fluid moment in which not only the future, but the past can be
created. To "create" one's past is to decide what the objective events of one's
past mean. It is to choose to be the person in the present or the future whose
past has a particular meaning. Thus, an alternative to Kant's conception of
autonomous action is suggested. To make autonomous decisions is to be
actively involved in a process of ethical decision-making which involves the
agent in self-determination through reappraisal of his or her own self-
narrative. Of course, there are constraints on what human actions can mean.

Those constraints are largely social. An example of the connection between

87

autonomy and social context can be seen in pointing out that narratives are
stories told in language. Obviously, individuals obtain their language from
others and language reflects the history of those who used it and contributed
to it in the past. It is Hegel, not MacIntyre, who provides the more adequate
account of how social and historical contexts enter into value judgments and
the construction of agency. While MacIntyre's account eclipses autonomy,
Hegel accounts for individual autonomy in terms of social conditions. In the
next chapter, I will discuss Hegel's account.

MacIntyre does claim that the good life is the life spent seeking the good
life and such activity surely involves deliberation.54 But here MacIntyre
seems to be wanting it both ways. Only if there is fairly well established
agreement about ends can there be a context within which value judgments
have objective status as this status is envisioned by MacIntyre. Thus, either
there is deliberation and active agency, or there arecoherent, objective value
judgments. According to MacIntyre's own account, we cannot have both.
The lesson to be drawn from these considerations is that any account of
agency which attempts to accommodate a historically sensitive notion of the
self must beware of the danger of devolving into a mechanical view of the
self which eclipses agency as distinctively human activity. Integral to such an
account must be an explanation of how an agent can be both free and

historically conditioned.

Kant and MacIntyre on Difference
In approaching these questions and considering the relationships among

the issues of self, community and agency, it is easy to see Kant and MacIntyre

 

54MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 219.

88

as two sides of a coin. Kant represents the attempt to clarify the notion of the
autonomous self who is free from the heteronomy and contingency of a
historical community. Thus the conflicting spheres of modernity are
rendered irrelevant. There is a single principle of ethical action and that
principle, respect for the moral law, cannot be derived from the empirical
world and thus is oblivious to the conditions of modern life. This rescue of
the ethical self is accomplished by doubling the self and designating only one
of the doubles as the locus of moral action. The moral "true" self is the one
which is purified of natural and historical elements. MacIntyre is repulsed by
the image of such a ghost self and redraws the self as so completely defined by
its community that its identity is absorbed. On the one hand, the self is so free
of its history that it stands eternal. On the other hand, the self is so time-
bound that movement and progress is arrested. Either the self as an absolute
and self-contained agent is productive of ethical choices or the community as
bearer of a moral tradition provides the standards for choice. If we accept the
self as pure ethical agent, then rationality itself is identified as the basis of
morality. If we accept the ethical self as historical, then narrative becomes the
crucial concept. On the one hand a rational element can be abstracted from
the contingency of a creature's situation; on the other hand the narrative
contains within itself the guide to action. Notice that both views find the
multiplicity of real selves problematic. For Kant, we are dual selves: natural
and rational. These two selves are in battle as far as ethics is concerned.
Kant's solution is to shun and silence the natural self. For MacIntyre,
multiple selves are insinuated from the diversity of practices always available
and, in modernity, to the conflicting partitions of modern life. Again,

multiplicity cannot be tolerated. MacIntyre eliminates the effects of

89

multiplicity by unifying it in an ultimate telos and a single moral tradition.
Thus, difference no longer makes a difference. Both Kant and MacIntyre are
plagued by difference and find it necessary to smother it. Indeed, their own
differences seem less significant in light of their flight from difference. The
lesson to be drawn here is that an adequate account of agency and the
conditions of agency must countenance the multiplicity of the self and the
differentiations of modernity associated with its multiplicity.

Another important relationship exists between Kant and MacIntyre. The
primary way in which MacIntyre articulates the crisis of contemporary moral
reflection is in terms of the loss of the distinction between offering good
reasons during a moral argument and simple manipulation. As he saw it,
only a coherent background of moral consensus and a community within
which the virtues flourish could be a community within which it was
possible to actually offer good reasons. His critique of modernity is motivated
by the obliteration of the distinction between offering good reasons and

manipulation which he characterizes as crucial to the notion of morality.

. . . the difference between a human relationship uninformed by
morality and one so informed is precisely the difference between
one in which each person treats the other primarily as a means
to his or her ends and one in which each treats the other as an
end. To treat someone else as an end is to offer them what I take
to be good reasons for acting in one way rather than another, but
to leave it to them to evaluate those reasons. It is to be
unwilling to influence another except by reasons which that
other he or she judges to be good. It is to appeal to impersonal
criteria of the validity of which each rational agent must be his
or her own judge. By contrast, to treat someone else as a means
is to seek to make him or her an instrument of my purposes by
adducing whatever influences or considerations will in fact be
effective on this or that occasion.55

 

55lbid., pp. 23 - 24.

90

Thus, the whole point of establishing a particular kind of community is to
re-establish what is distinctive about moral relationships. Recall that one of
MacIntyre's arch villains is Kant and Kant's conception of the autonomous
individual which MacIntyre thinks is one of the keys to the destruction of
communities which might be the support of coherent moral agency.
MacIntyre does mention that his indictment of contemporary "moral"
discourse in terms of offering reasons as opposed to manipulation is Kant's
way of characterizing morality. He claims that other earlier moral
philosophers characterize morality in this same way, although he does not
mention them. What is so striking in terms of MacIntyre's later argument
for a virtue ethics is that this criticism of modern moral discourse is firmly
planted in the primacy of respect for the autonomous individual. The
characteristic feature of Kantian ethics is the focus on respect for the
autonomous individual. One cannot derive this indictment of moral
discourse from a virtue ethics. The notion of respect entails a conception of
the individual which is distinctively Kantian and distinctively modern. No
rehabilitation of Aristotelian ethics can produce this critique which is central
to MacIntyre's diagnosis of the disorder of modern moral discourse. Indeed,
Aristotle's portrait of the ideal person requires use of other persons as means

in the most blatant way.

Aristotle's self-sufficiently happy man can reach his political or
contemplative perfection only if he is rich, fortunate, honored,
and supported by slaves who do all the work that is not
compatible with the aristocratic ideal of leisure and purity.56

MacIntyre notes that Aristotle's treatment of slaves and women is less

than desirable, but he treats this as separable from an overall theory of the

 

56Shklar, Judith N., Ordinary Vices (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 232

91

virtues. My argument is that Aristotle's view of slaves and women reflects
the complete absence of the notion of respect for others which is crucial to the
modern conception of ethical agency and that this conception is so central to
contemporary moral discourse that even MacIntyre cannot argue without it.
In his formulation of the problem of modernity, MacIntyre locates himself
within a tradition which he indicts as productive of that problem. Thus
MacIntyre cancels his own critique and succeeds in appearing persuasive only
by equivocating on the articulation of the problem. Rather than throw out
the notion of autonomy and the autonomous self, I would like to rehabilitate
these notions as indicated above. Kant based his notion of autonomy on the
divorce of the historical self from the rational self. However, it seems
possible to articulate the notion of autonomy in a way that does not employ
this diremption and the effects for agency which have already been noted. In
developing this rehabilitation, MacIntyre's conception of narrative proves
useful. His conception of narrative may also be useful in conceiving of how
the contemporary self can move among the differentiated spheres of
modernity without dissolving. Such a conception may save us from positing
an essence of the self without admitting a self which is merely a heap of
disparate selves.

The two glaring inconsistencies in MacIntyre's After Virtue are his
surreptitious use of the notion of the autonomous subject and his capricious
employment of material analysis. These inconsistencies reveal that
MacIntyre cannot legitimately condemn the idea of autonomy or the fact of
differentiation in the modern world. The challenge in developing a
conception of the conditions for coherent moral agency in the modern world

is to accept both the idea of the autonomous individual and the fact of

92

differentiation. I would like to turn to Hegel as a thinker who accepted the
challenge just posed. Hegel accepted that the agent is rooted in his or her
community, but also recognized the distinctive nature of modern society. His

view aims at accommodating differentiation while retaining a coherent agent

The Possibility of Ethical Agency in Modernity

Hegel argues that the practice of modern moral engagement with others is
a historical achievement causally related to social differentiation. Social
differentiation brings about changes in the competencies of individuals.
These competencies include the formation of a self which is distinct from any
of its social roles or occupations. Hegel argues that material changes, far from
destroying the possibility of moral interaction, have been the historical basis
for its maturation.
MacIntyre has a paradoxical relationship to modernity. He recognizes that the
market is a key element in modern life, but his suggestion for a return to the
immediacy of a premodern community ignores the fact that modernity brings
new forms of social interaction and that these new forms are the basis for
distinctly modern individuals. Hegel has a profound and thoroughgoing
understanding of modernity. MacIntyre argues that the development of
market economy shattered the bonds which held premodern communities
together. Hegel takes seriously the disruption of community which occurs
with modernity and begins his political theory with the individual. The
normative order of premodernity was destroyed. However, it remained and
remains true that coherent ethical agency requires a social basis. Hegel argues
that for the modern individual, this kind of community has to be a conscious
achievement. Thus, Hegel combines the idea of the need for a coherent
ethical community with the idea of the freedom of the individual to be
responsible for his or her moral basis. Hegel takes Kant's notion of the
necessity for morality of the autonomous will and removes it from the

sphere of the individual. Hegel demonstrates that the autonomy of the

93

94

moral will is a social achievement. It is not based on caprice, but it is based
on individual choice. Hegel achieves these seemingly contradictory aims by
beginning with the individual will and showing how a unified ethical
community is derived out of the capriciousness of the individual will. Thus
he develops a theory which allows for individual autonomy, modern social
differentiation and a community which is the basis for coherent ethical
agency. I would like to reconstruct Hegel's argument by discussing his
reconstruction of the progress of social forms of being in the Philosophy of
Right.57

The Philosophy of Right is divided into three sections: abstract right,
morality and ethical life. The movement through these three sections shows
how individuals become concrete agents as they attain membership in social
groups. Hegel demonstrates how modernity solves the problem of allowing
for individual autonomy without that autonomy merely being an expression
of arbitrariness. Thus Hegel shows-how the autonomy of the individual
requires the concrete setting of social groups without the surrender of

individuality.

Abstract Right

Kant's moral philosophy purports to demonstrate the necessity of a
timeless realm as the basis of moral action. For Kant, the will must be capable
of determining itself if we are to be included in the category of moral agents.
Kant defines the will as "a faculty of choosing only that which reason,

independently of inclination, recognizes as practically necessary, i.e. as

 

57Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated by
T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).

95

good."58 It is only by having a will that we are distinguished from amoral
creatures and beings. Amoral beings are such because they are not
accountable for their actions. They are not accountable because they are not
the authors of their actions. Thus, the determination of the will is crucial.
Since human beings are gpa_bl_e of determining their will, failure to do so is
the heart of immoral action. For Kant, the autonomy of the will was only
exercised when the will was determined by reason only. This is so because
only reason is its own foundation.

Hegel accepts Kant's starting point, the will, and even accepts that freedom
is to be understood in terms of the will's self-determination. He also accepts
that the merely arbitrary will is not really free. In so far as our choices are on
the basis of arbitrary impulse and inclination, there is a sense in which we are
acting freely since we can proclaim and identify the willing as our own.
However, Hegel agrees with Kant that an arbitrary will is not really free in so

far as it is determined by something other than itself.

If we hear it said that the definition of freedom is ability to do
what we please, such an idea can only be taken to reveal an utter
immaturity of thought, for it contains not even an inkling of the
absolutely free will, of right, ethical life, and so forth. Reflection,
the formal universality and unity of self-consciousness, is the
will's abstract certainty of its freedom, but it is not yet the truth
of freedom, because it has not yet got itself as its content and
aim, and consequently the subjective side is still other than the
objective; the content of this self-determination, therefore, also
remains purely and simply finite. Instead of being the will in its
truth, arbitrariness is more like the will as contradiction.59

Here Hegel seems to be accepting Kant's point that the notion of freedom

of the will which defines this freedom as the ability to act on one's impulses

 

53Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 29.
59Hegel, p. 27, Paragragh 15.

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96

is not freedom at all because the impulses themselves are not freely chosen.
Thus, freedom to follow impulses is the contradiction of freedom of the will.
However, Hegel moves beyond Kant in pointing out the concrete ways in
which the arbitrary will is not free as simply an individual will. According to
Kant, an individual may be autonomous whether or not the content of one's
willing actually becomes objectively realized. It is the will which is good or
not. Ethical judgment does not focus on action or the consequences of action.
The status of objective states of affairs is irrelevant to the question of whether
or not one is free. Here Kant and Hegel part company.

According to Hegel, autonomy is denied if the content of the will is not
realized. The freedom of the will is only implicit if it is not given some
external form. The freedom of the will is immediately contradicted if the will
is not able to actually do what it posited or possess what it willed. We might
first think of the freedom of the will as the ability to imagine anything or to
desire anything. However, if I will something and am not able to obtain that
thing or bring about the willed event, then, according to Hegel's view, the
freedom of will is contradicted. The free will begins as pure indeterminacy in
contrast to the determinacy of a thing. As free will I am able to will anything.
As free will I am not limited. However, this freedom is purely implicit or
abstract. It is an expression of my freedom to will that some event come to
pass, but if I cannot actually bring that event to pass, then the obstinacy of
existence demonstrates that I am not free. The content of my free willing, e.g.
to bring x into existence, is the thought that I will have x. This very willing is
shown to be false if I find that I cannot bring the content of my willing into
existence. If I am unable to make objective the object of my willing, then

within self-consciousness there are two contradictory contents. There is that

97

object of self-consciousness which is my subjective desire. This object occurs
in imagination. There is also the actual state of affairs which I make an object
of self-consciousness. Thus the object posited in subjective imagination and
the object which presents itself as the objective state of affairs are both objects
of self-consciousness. These objects both are within self-consciousness. They
are compared and discovered to be contradictory. This difference between
Kant and Hegel can be explained by pointing out that while Kant is a dualist,
Hegel is a monist. For Hegel, the subjective and the objective both occur
within self-consciousness. Thus, according to Hegel, we are free only if we are
able to make objective the contents of subjective aims. The condition of
individual freedom is then whatever enables the move from subjective to
objective to occur.

Recall that Kant defines: the will in relation to reason. To be rational is to
avoid self-contradiction. But what is the self? The Kantian true moral self is
not the historical and natural self. Kant's ontological dualism posits two
kinds of existents: things and selves. Things have determined natures. They
are not free. Selves do not have a determined nature. They are free. But to
not have a determined nature does not mean to be indeterminate. An
existent cannot be indeterminant. A self is self-determining. According to
Kant, since only reason is its own foundation, a self is living reason. The key
to understanding the Kantian notion of self is the idea of living reason. From
this orientation to Kant, it is easy to see how Hegel takes up this notion.
Hegel, too, is fascinated with the idea of what it would mean for reason to
live. For reason to live is to introduce reason into the world of the
determined and the chaotic and to transform this irrational existence.

Human beings have the capacity to negate determinant existence. But Hegel

98

differs from Kant in seeing that reason cannot be separated from its content.
Form and content can be separated, but to do so is to introduce an abstraction.
A cardboard box is not the idea of a three-dimensional square and cardboard.
An agent is not pure rationality plus a set of circumstances.

Hegel accepts the will as living reason and that reason is non-
contradiction. But he redraws the distinction between the given and reason.
The rationality of the will consists in choosing. The principle of choosing is
non—contradiction. But reason by itself cannot dictate action. It is only the
principle of non-contradiction. What is to not be contradicted are contents of
consciousness. An ethical problem presents itself as a situation opposed to
some ideal. In ethical action, reason is confronted with the existing situation
and the ideal. For Hegel, reason lives as the impulse to eliminate the
contradiction of the objective situation and the ideal. It is the activity of the
will to resolve that contradiction. "The will's activity consists in annulling
the contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity and giving its aims an
objective instead of a subjective character. . ."50 Such resolution is the
freedom of the will. Thus, the very idea of the free will, in contrast with
Kant, shows that it must be able to move from subjective imagination to
actually bringing the thing into existence or possessing the thing. Otherwise,
its freedom is contradicted.

Hegel is able to move beyond Kant because he rejects the notion of a thing-
in-itself. For Hegel, everything occurs within consciousness. There is not a
noumenal world which is implicated by the experience of moral obligation. It
is the fact that everything occurs within consciousness that enables Hegel to

demonstrate that freedom is a dialectical movement of the will. The fact that

 

601bid., p. 32, Paragraph 28.

99

Kant required an unknowable realm appears to Hegel as an affront to our
freedom. That which cannot be known must remain a contradiction within
self-consciousness. It is known but it cannot be known. The rendering of all
contents as knowable is another aspect of the freedom of the will. Since all
objects of self-consciousness occur within self-consciousness, any object which
presents itself as unknown takes on the character of an alien object. It is a
contradiction for self-consciousness to find a foreign object within self-
consciousness since all objects are marked as "mine" by the fact of being an
object of self-consciousness. The marking of an object as unknown must be
resolved. Thus, Kant's thing-in-itself is an affront to freedom. A world in
which there is something necessarily unknowable is a world in which
freedom of the will is denied. Thus Hegel finds that Kant's philosophy,
which requires freedom, is problematic.

Hegel introduced the social realm by showing that making my free will
objective involves other people. If I will to become a plumber, and being a
plumber requires by definition that other people call me to work on their
plumbing, then my will is only realized if other people in fact do call me to
work on their plumbing. Thus, the idea of the free will brings into play the
sphere of social relations. Hegel exemplifies this notion primarily through

the notion of private property.

A person puts his will into a thing - that is just the concept of
property, and the next step is the realization of this concept. The
inner act of will which consists in saying that something is mine
must also become recognizable by others. If I make a thing mine,
I give to it a predicate, 'mine', which must appear in it in an
external form and must not simply remain in my inner will. It
often happens that children lay stress on their prior willing in
preference to the seizure of a thing by others. But for adults this
willing is not sufficient, since the form of subjectivity must be

100

removed and must work its way beyond the subjective to
objectivity.61

The freedom of abstract right is the freedom associated with the
overcoming of Hobbes' "state of nature." In the state of nature one had a
right to all things, but that right was only implicit because in a lawless world
the claim to things could not secured. I might obtain some object but be
unable to keep it and thus its status as 'mine' was never secure. Making the
object "mine" requires the recognition by others that it is mine. Such
recognition implies that others accept that they do not have a right to that
thing. In order for anyone to possess an object securely, the right to all things
must be given up.

Hegel accepts with Kant that rationality is the key element in true
freedom. However, Hegel constitutes an advance over Kant because he
understood rationality, not simply in terms of an individual, but in social
terms. Kant argued that one was autonomous only when one's will was not
influenced by social, historical or natural influences. The possibility of such a
separation falls with Hegel's assumption of monism. Hegel demonstrates in
the section on abstract right that the possibility of securely possessing objects,
and thus making objective one's desires for objects, requires social
organization. My freedom to have certain objects can only be realized in a
social context. The overcoming of the contradiction expressed in the right to
all things occurs through the creation of a new form of social being. In order
to express my free will and overcome the contradiction of its subjectiveness,
individuals make explicit terms of association with others. Laws are made by
the mutual consent of individuals for the purpose of ensuring that property

can be secured. In so doing, my free will can actually be expressed in the

 

6llbid., p. 237, Addition to Paragraph 51.

101

securing of property. In establishing laws, individuals can move from
implicit freedom to explicit freedom. Hegel introduced a conception of
rationality which is social. ~ Individuals in pursuit of their aims can only
actually achieve these aims if they construct a system within which their
achievements are secure. Laws concerning property are essential. The
freedom to have objects is not trivial for Hegel. It is essential to being a
subject that one possess objects. One demonstrates that one is not an object by
showing that one has a will. To possess an object to the exclusion of others is
an objective demonstration that one has a will and is thus a subject.

The idea of these laws is that they apply to everyone. Thus, the idea of
rationality as universal application of law is made concrete through the legal
institution. Individuals are now brought into an order with one another and
this orderliness is itself an expression of reason. Furthermore, because of the
objective existence of the law and its application to everyone alike, persons
can think of themselves in a way they could not think of themselves before.
Persons can now think of themselves, not simply as bundles of desires and
satisfactions, but as instances of a universal. An achievement in self-
consciousness has occurred. This achievement constitutes an achievement
for freedom in two ways. Individuals can experience themselves not merely
as the subjects of their desires, but as formal individuals who can distance
themselves from their desires. Individuals can reflect their desires through
their conception of themselves as universal beings, i.e. as rational beings who
can choose on the basis of reason. The achievement of freedom thus requires
that we move beyond the false freedom associated with acting on impulse.
We now introduce a rational element into our choosing. The objects which

we choose to pursue are not those which we passively suffer as whims, but

102

are mediated through our realization that not all objects are available.
Freedom is gained in the sense of our consciously being able to determine
what the objects of our pursuit will be. This gain occurred through the
institutionality of positive law and norms. These externalizations reflect
agreements with others and create a new unity: an ethical community. Thus,
Hegel demonstrates that the rationality which is necessary for freedom is not
the rationality of another world, but the rationality expressed in concrete
human relations and made objective in laws. Furthermore, since these laws
are the conscious products of an individual or individuals, rationality is
demonstrated as not a foreign influence. Kant's requirement that freedom is
obtained only on the basis of choice which is its own foundation is secured
through the conscious choice of persons to establish laws within which
freedom may be expressed. Thus, Hegel demonstrates that freedom is not an
otherworldly phenomenon, but a social creation. The freedom of the
individual cannot be experienced except within a community of living
persons. From the very idea of the autonomy of the individual, Hegel
demonstrates that that autonomy can only be made actual in a community
and that in forming that community the individual is transformed.

The objective institutionality of positive law and norms creates an ethical
community. The individual now includes in his or her self-concept the idea
of being a member of the group of individuals who are subject to the laws and
norms which define the group. What is crucial in realizing the way Hegel
internally connects the notion of individual autonomy and community is to
see that the very ability of the individual to know him or herself g an
individual requires participation in a group. Through identification with the

group, the individual can think him or herself.

103

The self-consciousness which purifies its object, content, and
aim, and raises them to this universality effects this as thinking
getting its own way in the will. Here is the point at which it
becomes clear that it is only as thinking intelligence that the will
is genuinely a will and free. The slave does not know his
essence, his infinity, his freedom; he does not know himself as
human in essence; and he lacks this knowledge of himself
because he does not think himself. The self-consciousness
which apprehends itself through thinking as essentially human,
and thereby frees itself from the contingent and the false, is the
principle of right, morality, and all ethical life.62

To think is to generalize, i.e. to grasp a universal. The individual reflects
his or her free indeterminacy through the idea of the group and knows him
or herself as an instance of the universal. Thus, Hegel identifies knowing
and being. Furthermore, in light of Hegel's understanding of ourselves as
posited through our self-knowledge which requires reflection through a
universal, Hegel's claim that we are moments of the ultimate universal,
Spirit, is less mysterious. The fact of our realization of ourselves indicates the
priority of some universal through which our individuality acquires
determinacy.

The results which can be drawn already from this consideration of Hegel
are an enriched conception of the relationship of self, community and ethical
reflection. While I noted earlier the connection between self and group
identity, Hegel's analysis implies that perhaps multiple group identities are
not to be lamented. The conception of the self I am developing is of a self
whose being is establishedqthrough group identity in a deeper way than
previously indicated. Furthermore, my hypothesis is that further
investigation of Hegel will suggest that the space of the self and the very being
of the self is enriched through participation in conflicting groups. Only in

light of the conflicting groups of which the self is a member does the "I"

 

62Ibid., p. 30, Paragraph 21.

 

104

develop a self-concept as completely distinct from any particular group of
which it is a member. Thus, Hegel criticizes ancient Greece for the
immediacy of the relationship between individual and community.‘53 Indeed,
the very consciousness of a 'moral problem' reflects conflicts among group
norms. In so far as we identify ourselves with a particular group we know
ourselves as a member of a group. We recognize that we have certain rights,
duties and obligations as defined by our position in the group. If we only
belonged to a single group, we would never experience those conflicts which
result from conflicting duties. We would never be able to conceptualize a
situation as a 'moral problem'. If we could not experience moral problems,
then we would not be able to see ourselves as abstracted from the groups of
which we are a member and posit ourselves as not simply a member of a
group, but a being in its own right. Thus, the 'self' is both an abstraction
formed in the interstices of our situations within the ethical communities of
which we are members and a set of competencies for moving among those
communities. Our selves as individual, knowable selves are constructs and
sets of competencies carved out and developed in the space created by the
multiplicity of modernity. Thus, MacIntyre's dislike of the Kantian
autonomous self and his call for a return to polls-like communities threatens
our very ability to know ourselves as selves. MacIntyre’s call is tantamount
to self-annihilation, to suicide. Perhaps MacIntyre is the true nihilist.
Fragmentation and the havoc its poses to ethical reflection is a problem, but
the solution of self-erasure is not the virtuous action. It is not courageous.

It is important to emphasize that Hegel's account is a historical account of

the development of the modern individual. Whether or not we ultimately

 

63Avineri, Schlomo, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 111 - 112.

105

accept Hegel's view that it was necessary that individuality develop, his
account demonstrates that it was required historically. Even without bringing
in any of Hegel's metaphysics, his arguments show that the talents and
desires of human beings posed certain problems to them which were solved
through institutions like the legal system. The problems of human beings
might have been addressed in different ways, but since the legal system was
instituted, it became part of the historical legacy of human beings and had the
effect of creating a new form of social being and a new way in which human
beings could know themselves. This turn then posed new problems and the
historical solutions to these problems had effects again for social interaction
and individual self-awareness. Hegel's story is itself a narrative which tells
us who we are. It locates us in a wider human history. Hegel's version is
clearly teleological, but even without his metaphysical teleology it has a
beginning, a middle and leaves us with obstacles which point to possible
futures. The overcoming of those obstacles, or the failure to overcome those
obstacles will create our future. The narrative within which MacIntyre
invites us to locate ourselves, e. g. the tradition of the virtues, is challenged by
Hegel's narrative. Hegel's narrative provides us with a much wider
framework. MacIntyre's inconsistencies obfuscate the history of the moderns.
His flirtation with material analysis and his unacknowledged use of the
notion of the autonomous individual as the key to the notion of morality
make his own narrative incoherent. His own history cannot provide us with
a coherent basis for ethical reflection. I would like return to the discussion of
Hegel's Philosophy of Right, test the hypothesis described above and consider

Hegel's solution to the fragmentation of modernity.

106

Morality

Abstract right is that system of minimum rules which create a space for
pursuit of individual aims. Everyone who is subject to it can realize its
rationality. This system becomes actualized in the institution of the legal
system.‘54 The first glimmer of a notion of morality arises here through the
idea of conforming to the laws of the system. However, this system is merely
external. It operates through formal laws and the threat of penalties as much
as through the recognition of its necessity and rationality. In abstract right,
there is only external conformity to the legal system. The development
marked by the stage of morality is the introduction of the notion of

individual conscience. At this stage true subjectivity develops.

The standpoint of morality is the standpoint of the will which is
infinite not merely in itself but for itself (see Paragraph 104). In
contrast with the will's implicit being, with its immediacy and
the determinate characteristics developed within it at that level,
this reflection of the will into itself and its explicit awareness of
its identity makes the person into the subject.“

The social occasion of the development of moral subjectivity, according to
Hegel, is the punishment of crimes. The punishment of crime may be
experienced as just another wrong.66 However, since an impersonal judge
metes out the punishment, the idea of justice before the law is not the idea of
personal vengeance. The criminal has not wronged the judge. The judge is
merely the mouthpiece of universal law. Thus in the institution of the judge

the idea of equality before the law is expressed. A new relationship among

 

64Pelczynslti, z. A., "Political Community and Individual Freedom," in The State
and Civil Society, (ed.) Z. A. Pelczynski (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984), pp. 66 - 67.

65Hegel, p. 75, Paragraph 105.

66Ibid., p. 333, The Translator's Notes are very helpful in understanding this
move.

107

persons is expressed. Persons are now formally equal and can think
themselves in this way. Again, a social institution establishes new social
relations and new ways for individual self-understanding and social being.

In the section on abstract right, laws and norms are described as externally
imposed on individuals. People obey the laws because they fear punishment,
not because they recognize their rightness apart from the threat of
punishment. The movement from abstract right to morality is the move
from acting according to law or norms because of fear of external correction to
acting according to law or norms because of the internal recognition of the
rightness of such action. Hegel introduces the movement to the section of
Philosophy of Right on morality by pointing out that the idea of the
impersonal judge detaches the notion of transgression of law or norms from
the realm of the merely personal.

The wrong of the criminal is not a violation of‘any individual will, but of
an idea expressed in the law. In the state of nature, one's behavior
concerning others was moderated by fear of individual retribution. However,
with the idea of the law came the idea that the wrongness of one's action was
not a matter of banning another person, but was a matter of transgressing the
idea of the law or norm. The wrong was against an idea, not a particular
person. Conceiving of this abstraction occurred with the concrete practice of
the judge. Furthermore, every judge should make the same judgment. It
was not the personality of the judge which issued the judgment. Thus,
enforcement of norms was detached from the physical ability of the person
wronged and from the personality of the judge. Since judgment was detached
from any particular person, judgment became autonomous. The criminal

could now judge him or herself on the very same grounds as the judge. The

108

criminal could realize the judgment as right through his or her own
understanding. This meant that the criminal could judge him or herself and
even evaluate whether or not some particular judge had made the proper
judgment. Thus, Hegel demonstrates that the social institution of the judge
suggested the autonomy of right and wrong, whether legal or moral. With
this objective and concrete institution, individual persons began to be able to
think about their relationships in objective terms. With this objectivity a
revolution in self-consciousness occurred. Now persons became able to
internalize the idea of the judge and the idea of judging oneself became
possible. The external judge and the internal judge must judge according to
the same rational principles. Thus, one's internal judgment could overrule,
for oneself, the judgment of the external judge. With this revolution, the
subjectivity of the moral subject is born and the freedom of the moral subject.
Now the subject can evaluate his or her own future or past actions and
choose to act on the basis of that evaluation. Furthermore, since judgment is
based on ideas, not personalities, no one's judgment is better than anyone
else's. The idea of the conscience and the primacy of obeying one’s own

conscience has now entered the scene of the drama of human development.

No one can break in upon this inner conviction of mankind, no
violence can be done to it, and the moral will, therefore, is
inaccessible. Man's worth is estimated by reference to his inward
action and hence the standpoint of morality is that of freedom
aware of itself.67

The idea of the law thus leads to the idea of the importance of intention in
evaluating action. What Hegel is doing in Philosophy of Right is telling the
story of human moral development as it unfolds from the idea of the

freedom of the will. This story shows the inherent connection of the

 

67Ibid., p. 248, Addition to Paragraph 106.

. In.

109

development of freedom and objective social institutions. Freedom is the
starting point, but it is not a fixed thing. Freedom qualitatively develops
through concrete human relationships as mediated through objective
institutions. Even morality, which for Hegel is an internally directed stage of
freedom, is possible only as a social achievement. Indeed, the very
inwardness of morality is contradicted by its genesis. This is the stage at
which Hegel finds Kant. According to Hegel, Kant theorizes on the basis of
the stage of morality. However, as with abstract right, morality contains
contradictions which must‘be resolved. Abstract right is the stage of
externality; morality is the stage of internality. Clearly, these are stages of a
dialectic which must be superseded.

Hegel's criticism of Kant and the stage of morality is that the notion of
morality is contentless. As argued above, one cannot determine morally

correct action in the abstract.

Good in the abstract evaporates into something completely
powerless, into which I may introduce any and every content,
while the subjectivity of mind becomes just as worthless because
it lacks any objective significance.68

Hegel demonstrates that the idea of individual conscience as the final
appeal for moral decisions was gained through objective social institutions.
In his story of the development of human freedom, Hegel shows how each
stage is superseded by the next. However, something is retained from each
stage. In giving content to the idea of right, the importance of conscience is
not lost. What is necessary is to give it some content. How does one decide
what is the right action in some situation? Certainly each individual must do

what he or she determines is right, but how is that determination made?

 

681bid., p. 258, Addition to Paragraph 141.

110

Kant argued that the ground of obligation lay outside of the natural and
historical world. Hegel argues that the ground of obligation lies within that
world. Action is justified by reference to the institutions of which
individuals are members. It is through membership in these institutions that
persons gain concrete personhood. Thus, membership in them is not
peripheral to who one is. The reasons which present themselves as
legitimate in the theater of conscience are mediated by the particularity of
each individual's concrete personhood. Hegel does not eliminate the
precious autonomy which is secured in morality, he argues that that
autonomy is itself mediated through human history and each individual's
particularity. For the modern person, the crucial institutions which give
content to his or her personality are the family, civil society and the state. At

this point Hegel moves from the stage of morality to the stage of ethical life.

Ethical Life

Avineri describes the family, civil society and the state as three modes of
human interaction: "particular altruism - the family; universal egoism -
civil society; universal altruism - the state."69 To be a member of a family
brings with it certain duties and rights. My duties to the members of my
family are different than my duties to persons who are not members of my
family. The content of those duties are socially and historically determined;
they are culturally specific. It is important for Hegel that everyone grows up
in a family or some type of a setting in which individual desires are mediated
by the needs of the group. Thus, we are weaned from the arbitrariness of our

individual desires and gain control over our desires. Each family member

 

69Avineri, p. 134.

111

must sometimes put aside his or her desires for the good of the family as a
whole or some other member of the family. For Hegel, this is part of
becoming human.

The family, civil society and the state are forms of social life. The family is
based on shared feeling and the immediate unity of the members. Civil

society brings persons into relations with one another in quite a different way.

Civil society is the sphere of universal egoism, where I treat
everybody as a means to my own ends. Its most acute and typical
expression is economic life, where I sell and buy not in order to
satisfy the needs of the other, his hunger or his need for shelter,
but where I use the felt need of the other as a means to satisfy my
own ends. My aims are mediated through the needs of others:
the more other people are dependent on a need which I can
supply, the better my own position becomes. This is the sphere
where everyone acts according to what he perceives as his
enlightened self-interest.7o

Civil society is the realm of human interactions based on the needs of
individuals. It is the realm of production and exchange. Hegel clearly
distinguishes civil society and the state. In civil society everyone aims at their
own good and that good is often in conflict with the good of others. There is
no consciousness of unity of purpose among the members of civil society.
The state is similar to the family in so far as it is a community in which the
members can realize themselves as united. However, the unity of the state is
based on reason, not feeling.

Hegel argues that civil society multiplies needs as persons cultivate and
pander to the needs of others. Wherever a niche opens in the market,
entrepreneurs are eager to fill it. With this multiplication of needs there

arises a division of labor. Civil society thus leads to various groups who are

 

701bid., p. 134.

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on

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differentiated from one another by the kind of work they do and the

accompanying development of different life styles and values.

The infinitely complex, criss-cross, movements of reciprocal
production and exchange, and the equally infinite multiplicity of
means therein employed, become crystallized, owing to the
universality inherent in their content, and distinguished into
general groups. As a result, the entire complex is built up into
particular systems of needs, means, and types of work relative to
these needs, modes of satisfaction and of theoretical and practical
education, i.e. into systems, to one or other of which individuals
are assigned - in other words, into class-divisions.71

I have already discussed differentiation as the multiplicity of ethical
communities of which a single person may be a member of many. A single
person may be a member of a family, a church, a social club, a political party
and a company or other employment group. The principles and interests of
these may come into conflict and the agent be unable to rationally choose a
course of action. Now Hegel introduces the notion of class differentiation.
This kind of differentiation is divisive for a society as a whole because
different socio-economic and work status involve the development of
various lifestyles. Various lifestyles lead to various values. People of various
classes are related to one another through the system of needs, geographical
location and as members of the same political units. Thus they are classifiable
as members of the same groups as determined by these classification schemes,
but this membership is an external matter. It is especially through the kind of
labor one does that one develops a particular identity. Thus, people who do
the same kind of labor will share an internal relatedness. The kind of work
one does and the labor class one belongs to are the bases for concrete

community.

 

“Hegel, pp. 130 - 131, Paragraph 201.

113

In Hegel's analysis of classes, he provides a compelling explanation of why
communities provide the background consensus necessary for coherent
agency and why material analysis is important in understanding agency.
MacIntyre mentions that modern labor practices are the key to the disruption
of communities, but he stops short of the fuller explanation given by Hegel.
MacIntyre's incomplete analysis allows him to suggest a solution which does
not address the problem adequately. The question he sidesteps is whether or
not the class differentiations associated with the division of labor must be
fatal to shared values and agency.

Class differentiation and division of labor are not specific only to the
modern world. Aristotle's time knew even more dramatic class and lifestyle
differences than are practiced in contemporary modern society. I am referring
to the practice of slavery and the role of women. Hegel is like MacIntyre in
arguing that the divisions of society must be overcome. However, he argues
that a different kind of synthesis is needed in the modern world as opposed to
the ancient world. As we have seen, Hegel claims that modern subjectivity is
inherently different than ancient subjectivity. The idea of conscience which
is expressed in Christianity and the experience of complex market society
produce individuals who experience themselves as individuals in a way
unknown to members of the ancient world. The idea of conscience, which
Hegel locates as developing at the stage of morality, would be
incomprehensible to ancient persons. It is the idea of the individual as the
ultimate and unimpeachable judge. This modern idea has its seed in the
ancient Stoics, but is different from their idea of natural law. The ancient
Stoics understood natural law in terms of an objective order. In the modern

idea of conscience, the idea of an external, objective order of the universe to

114

which humans should align themselves is replaced by a subjective notion.
One must listen to one's own conscience and make one's own way and this
can be achieved without reliance on an objective order which precedes the
individual. Even Hegel's Spirit does not precede the individual as does the
Stoics' objective order of the universe. Furthermore, the experience of
market economy gives individuals the experience of striving for themselves
alone in opposition to others. These two conceptions make for a more
complex and individual subjectivity than that experienced by the ancient
Greeks.

Hegel saw the ancient Greeks as overcoming the divisions of their society
by sharing a conception of the good life. They immediately identified with
their society in a way impossible for modems with their enriched
individuation. "A state in which everyone is immediately identified with
the principle of common life in the same way, this was possible among the
ancients, but not with the more complex moderns."72 Hegel argues that the
ancient Greeks, and the members of traditional societies in general, can
immediately identify themselves with their larger community and see their
activities as contributing to the life of that larger community. However, the
more complex subjectivity of modems and their more diverse activities make
it impossible for moderns to identify themselves directly with the larger
community within which they live. Notice the contradiction here. Civil
society creates greater and greater interdependence among persons. This can
be easily seen in the way in which factories obtain raw materials and parts
from others areas. These materials are worked with and turned into products

which will be sold in places the workers may never go. A problem with the

 

72Taylor, Charles, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p.434.

115

production of these raw materials, their transportation or the selling
environment of the final product directly impacts the factory making the
final product. The members of civil society are concretely interrelated, but
their experience is an obstacle to their identification of themselves as
interrelated. The factory worker who spends eight hours a day installing the
inside, rear, right-hand doors of hundreds of cars has no experiential base for
identification with the complex set of interdependencies his or her
employment actually involves. The contradiction here is that although the
worker is concretely connected to workers and consumers all over the world,
this concrete truth can only be experienced as an abstraction. This is
important to Hegel as he tries to conceive of how the differentiations of
modernity can be overcome so that a coherent community can be produced
and experienced as such.

Hegel accepts that agency is rooted in the concrete activity of the agent and
the agent's particular community. Thus, the implications for agency of the
deep social divisions of modern life were starkly apparent to him. His
solution was not to call for the annihilation of such differentiation, but to
articulate the state as an institution which mediated the differences among
individuals. Before presenting Hegel's solution to civil society and his
solution to the modern, incoherent self, we must first understand his notion
of Geist , which is translated Mind, Spirit or God.

Hegel argues that wherever we look, experience presents us with
contradictions. We saw earlier that when Hegel encountered a pair of
conceptual oppositions, he discovered that they revealed a concept that
overcame their opposition. He demonstrates that if you begin with the

simplest concept you can imagine, e.g. being, you will find a contradiction

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within it which will lead you to realize that both can only be made sense of
when considered through a concept which includes both. Finally, Hegel
demonstrates that this progression continues until we realize that nothing is
immediate, i.e. nothing stands on its own, but everything is interrelated and
finally establishes a whole. That whole is Geist.

Geist is Hegel's answer-to Kant's thing-in-itself. Geist is that totality which
eliminates the necessity of positing a thing-in-itself. Geist is not a reality
which exists independently of a world of appearance, but is embodied in this
world. Thus, Hegel can overcome the opposition of appearance and reality.
Geist, however, is not simply identical with the world. It is the movement of
oppositions through which complete freedom is realized. It is the
development of self-consciousness. It requires embodiment so that it might
know itself, just as individual persons know themselves as different from
any particular object. But just as a person must go through the process of
learning to become, for example, an expert potter through working with clay
and actually making pottery, Geist comes to know itself as free by knowing
itself in the world. ‘

My interest in Hegel's theory of the state lies in his claim that the state
mediates the fragmentation in modern society. Hegel claims that the modern
state is a unity which transcends the competing and conflicting rationalities
in other parts of society. If Hegel is correct, then he can show us how the
apparently incoherent modern individual loses his or her incoherence by
membership in the state. Let us turn now to the details of Hegel's state.

Hegel's state is a constitutional monarchy. There is an assembly of classes
the purported function of which is to permit the participation of all citizens

in the state. The assembly acts as the representative of all of the citizens.

117

Citizens enter the state through their particularity, i.e. their class

membership.

The circles of association in civil society are already
communities. To picture these communities as once more
breaking up into a mere conglomeration of individuals as soon
as they enter the field of politics, i.e. the field of the highest
concrete universality, is co ipso to hold civil and political life
apart from one another and as it were to hang the latter in the
air, because its basis could then only be the abstract individuality
of caprice and opinion, and hence it would be grounded on
chance and not on what is absolutely stable and justified.73

The assembly of classesis made up of two houses. The Upper House is not
elected, but is composed of all of the landed aristocracy. This group obtains its
livelihood from its inherited land and thus is not likely to be swayed by desire
for gain. The members of this group are in a position to think about the good
for all.74 The Lower House is elected, but the basis for election is a very
different manner of elections from what we have in the United States
currently. Citizens would not vote as independent persons in a nationwide
election or even in state and local elections as we know them. People would
not consider themselves an electoral unit because of their geographical
proximity. The basis of an electoral unit would be commonality of work.

The problems of civil society include alienation, social fragmentation and
poverty. However, civil society provides individuals with new social roles
and a new level of individuality and freedom. Hegel's task was to show how
the institutions of the state can overcome the problems of civil society
without losing its benefits. He did this in the state by the formation of social
groups out of the atomism and antagonism of the system of needs. These

groups were based on experienced commonality. By being institutionalized as

 

73Hegel, p. 198.
74Ibid., p. 199.

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a group which functions as a single body, the commonality could be
recognized by others and experienced by the members. I am referring to
Hegel's corporations. The atomization engendered in civil society would be
repeated in the state if persons participated directly in government. Instead,
in Hegel's ideal state, citizens who participated in civil society - this excluded
the aristocracy and the farming peasants - engaged in political practice
through the mediation of corporations. Corporations were organizations of
persons who did the same kind of work. Thus, they could identify with one
another on the basis of shared productive activity. Instead of citizens voting
for government representatives on the basis of geography or other arbitrary
commonality, members of civil society would vote for representatives
through their corporations. The representatives would represent the
corporation in governmental deliberation. Through this vehicle, the
atomized individuals of civil society could form themselves into recognized
communities within which individuality was both preserved and overcome.
The corporations are ethical communities in so far as they are unities in
which values are shared. They mediate the atomistic individualism of civil
society and the unity of the state.75

The remaining part in Hegel's state is the monarch.

Sovereignty, at first simply the universal thought of this ideality,
comes into existence only as subjectivity sure of itself, as the
will's abstract and to that extent ungrounded self-determination
in which finality of decision is rooted. This is the strictly
individual aspect of the state, and in virtue of this alone is the
state one. The truth of subjectivity, however, is attained only in
a subject, and the truth of personality only in a person; and in a
constitution which has become mature as a realization of

 

75Walton, A. 8., "Economy, Utility and Community in Hegel's Theory of Civil
Society," in The State and Civil Society, (ed.) 2. A. Pelczynski (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 258 - 259.

119

rationality, each of the three moments of the concept has its
explicitly actual and separate formation. Hence this absolutely
decisive moment of the whole is not individuality in general,
but a single individual, the monarch.”5

The monarch is the symbol of the unity and freedom of the modern state.
The actual role of the monarch is empty as regards the functioning of the
state. The monarch only signs his name to legislation and makes
appointments to offices. The individual who will be the monarch is
determined by inheritance. Whereas elected representatives and appointed
officials should be chosen for their individual abilities, the person of the
monarch need not be chosen according to his particular attributes because he
does not really do anything. The monarch is essential because only in a
particular subject is the subjective unity of the state experienced. Recall that
Geist’s purpose is to objectify itself and know itself as self-subsistent. Only in
the self-consciousness of a particular subject can Geist know itself as
completely self-determined and thus free. In the monarch all the particular
moments of the state are brought together through the various mediating
institutions. When the monarch says "I will," his will is an individual
subject's will as mediated through the institution of monarchy. The "I will"
of the monarch represents the unification of the individual willing of all of
the citizens. The willing of the monarch has been purified of all the
irrationality of the particular willings of individual persons in civil society
and the family. The instrument of this purification is the state. Thus, the
monarch can give a rational content to the empty, arbitrary willing of civil
society. The state is rational because its institutions provide a way of filtering
out the irrationality of particularity. The state is necessary to the citizens

because in it they find their own rationality. They still have they their

 

76Hegel. p. 181.

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ungrounded and irrational whims, but in the state there are no arbitrary
whims. The institutions of the state provide the means for citizens to know
themselves according to who they are - peasant, businessman, civil servant -
but in light of how they make possible the unity of the state. Of course, I have
described a circle, but that is required for self-subsistency. Hegel's system is
self-subsistent and thus subjectively and objectively free because the system
sustains itself. It begins in simple subjectivity and ends in a subjectivity

which knows itself as the ground for its own being.

Evaluation of Hegel's Solution

I would now like to briefly evaluate Hegel's solution, especially as it
concerns the project of determining the grounds for agency in the
contemporary world. Hegel argues that differentiation need not be fatal to
agency. Differentiation is part of the development of human subjectivity and
autonomy. Differentiationwand conflict are not fatal if, according to Hegel,
they are contained by some overriding unity. For Hegel that unity was Geist
and the state.

Avineri77 points out that even Hegel could offer no solution to the
problem of poverty. Hegel argued that poverty is an unavoidable result of the

operation of civil society.

When civil society is in a state of unimpeded activity, it is
engaged in expanding internally in population and industry.
The amassing of wealth is intensified by generalizing (a) the
linkage of men by their needs, and (b) the methods of preparing
and distributing the means to satisfy these needs, because it is
from this double process of generalization that the largest profits
are derived. That is one side of the picture. The other side is the
subdivision and restriction of particular jobs. This results in the

 

77Avineri, pp. 148 - 154.

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dependence and distress of the class tied to work of that sort, and
these again entail inability to feel and enjoy the broader
freedoms and especially the intellectual benefits of civil society.78

Poverty is an important problem for Hegel because the propertyless cannot
objectify their personhood. The unemployed poor are unable to develop
their human powers through labor and cannot engage in social and political
activity which is necessary for the realization of autonomy. The poor are
atomized and alienated from the larger community. The intractability of the
problem of poverty indicates that the nature of the market is such that it
creates social conditions which preclude autonomy.

Marx criticized Hegel's advocacy of constitutional monarchy as locating
the state itself as the vehicle of the perpetuation of the divisions it is
supposed to reconcile. Civil society is the realm in which individuals are
obliged subjectively to act only for themselves. It is a contradictory sphere
because it is the sphere in which individuals establish concrete
interdependencies and produce products which are the result of these
objective interdependencies. Thus subjective intention contradicts objective
action. In civil society each thinks for him or herself, but acts with all. The
state is supposed to overcome this contradiction by being the sphere in which
subjectivity and objectivity. coincide, e.g. the conscious intention is to
organize society with all members in mind. But constitutional monarchy
cannot be the sphere in which subjectivity and objectivity coincide because
not all members participate equally in it, if they can be said to participate at all.
And, of course, in monarchy the word of the monarch is what determines the
law, not the will of the people. Even though Hegel's monarch will only "dot

the i's and cross the t's," the idea of a monarchy is the same. Hegel's state is

 

73Hegel, Philosophy of Right, pp. 149 - 150, Paragraph 243.

122

not all acting for all; it is some or one acting in the name of all. Not only
does Marx claim that it is an illusion that some can act for all, but equally
importantly, he demonstrates that the separation of state from civil society
introduces a separation which codifies and supports civil society as the realm
it is. Furthermore, rather than unifying the members of civil society, the state

only introduces another division.

The question whether "all as individuals participate in
deliberating and deciding on political matters of general
concern" arises from the separation of the political state from
civil society.79

The political state and civil society are separated. In that case it is
not possible that all as individuals participate in legislative
power. The existence of the political state is separated from that
of civil society. If all were to be legislators, civil society would
have to abolish itself.80

Marx employs Hegel's dialectical method, but with the important
difference that he does so as a materialist. This difference reveals to Marx that
a real overcoming of civil society is not accomplished by the addition of
another sphere, but would manifest itself as the dissolution of civil society. A
democracy in which all participated equally would mean the dissolution of
the separation between the, political and economic spheres. What are matters
that concern everyone? Everyone is concerned about their material
reproduction and civil society has created the conditions in which everyone's
material needs are met through objective interrelations. It is the politicizing
of the economic sphere which is the overcoming of the contradictions of civil

society.

 

79Marx, Karl, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society,
translated and edited by Loyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat. (Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 199.

801bid., p. 200.

123

By making its political existence actual as its true existence, civil
society also makes its civil existence unessential in contrast to its
political existence. And with the one thing separated, the other,
its opposite, falls. Within the abstract political state the reform
of voting is the dissolution of the state, but likewise the
dissolution of civil society.81

Hegel's state is only the illusion of the overcoming of the contradictions of
civil society. What must coincide are the subjective and objective sides of
civil society. In practice this means that economic decisions are not left to the
irrationality of particular individuals' decisions, but are the object of
conscious decision-making by all. Marx proposes that economic matters be
deliberated on democratically and thus civil society, as the sphere of decisions
made by individuals for their own self-interest only, will disappear. Thus,
the dialectical process Marx focuses on is the modern opposition of civil
society and the state which, in his view, can only be overcome by the
dissolution of both and the development of a new form of social being.

I would like to highlight four valuable contributions which Hegel's
analysis of modernity makes to the question of the conditions for modern
coherent agency, and by reviewing my criticisms of Hegel's conception of the
state as a way of overcoming the divisions in society which threaten ethical
agency. First, I will discuss the valuable contributions.

(1) Through Hegel's reconstruction of the development of modern
subjectivity, he makes it clear that modern subjectivity is internally related to
social institutions. The kind of person we can become is inherently
constrained by the kind of social institutions available to us. Social
achievements like modern law were the conditions for new forms of social

being within which modern individuals emerged. Thus, my stress on the

 

8llbid., p. 202.

124

importance of social institutions as the context and condition of modern
agency is strengthened by Hegel's account. This indicates that institutions
like the law, civil society and the state are not peripheral to an account of
moral agency. The capacity for agency of individuals does not spring from
nowhere. It is influenced and fostered by objective social institutions because
these institutions bring into being specific patterns of interaction among
people. Through these patterns of interaction individuals come to develop
specific capacities and personalities.

(2) I would like to highlight the notion of the corporation as introduced by
Hegel. In the idea of the function of the corporations, Hegel articulates the
importance of group membership for self-identity and makes it clear that
membership in an institution which might truly mediate the divisions of
modern society must itself be approached through membership in concrete
communities like corporations. Thus, Hegel is in agreement with
MacIntyre's notion that the basis for coherent moral agency must be
communities. However, by bringing in the notion of labor, Hegel clarifies the
material basis of community. If we set aside Hegel's metaphysical
commitments, the suggestion remains that modern differentiations need not
vitiate modern agency, if ways for all persons to participate in a vehicle which
effectively shapes their social environment is developed.

(3) Hegel's analysis of the modern subject reveals that the modern subject
is distinctively different from the premodern subject. This difference allows
for the possibility of a different kind of practical rationality for the modern
subject as opposed to the premodern subject. Here we see the beginning of
the development of an alternative to MacIntyre's conception of practical

rationality which reflects on the relationship between practical rationality and

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historical conditions. This alternative will be pursued in my discussion of
Habermas.

(4) The fruitful idea expressed in the notion of Hegel's state is that it is a
single vehicle which everyone participates in and through that participation
everyone can recognize themselves as, through their labor in participation,
developing for themselves the widest context which is the basis of their
particularity. In premodernity and for premodern subjects, coherent ethical
agency is conditioned by coherent communities. Hegel sees that modernity
breaks up these communities. However, the state, as an institution through
which political processes can proceed, introduces a new ethical standpoint
which overcomes the plurality of the standpoints of modern life. Hegel errs
in conceiving of the state as constituting a super-community. The state does
not have particular norms like a true community does. There is a sense in
which it constitutes a community, but the important point is that it can
perform a function which is quite different from a standard community. I
will attempt in the next chapter to show how Habermas picks up on this idea
and develops it in a way which is very promising. I would like conclude by
reviewing my criticism of Hegel.

Recall Hegel's claim that freedom must be objectively realized. On this
point he differed from Kant. Hegel's point about the importance of objective
realization can be used to criticize his view of the state. It is not true in
Hegel's state that all citizens participate actively in the state. Large segments
of society do not participate in the state except in the most indirect way.
Farming peasants do not participate, the propertyless poor do not participate
and, although this was not previously mentioned, it is clear that women do

not participate. Thus, these groups are excluded from full personhood. Their

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capacities as agents can only be developed, according to Hegel, in so far as they
actively participate in the state. It is through participation in the state that
individuals forge concrete connections with those others they are separated
from in the differentiations of modernity. Furthermore, the differentiations
introduced by civil society are not overcome by the state. Activity in the
marketplace remains divisive. Only through the device of Geist can Hegel
imagine that the oppositions inherent in marketplace activity are overcome.
In short, Hegel's suggestion of the modern state as a way of overcoming the
fragmentation of modernity fails. His failure draws attention to the stubborn
problem of the role of the economy in disrupting coherent ethical
communities, introducing norms which conflict with other spheres, and,
most importantly, introducing distinctions and material inequalities among
people which preclude participation in political institutions which mediate

conflicts.

Communicative Rationality and Ethical Agency

Summary of the Argument

I have argued that the crisis in contemporary ethical reflection can be
traced back to the failure of communities to provide the conditions for
coherent ethical agency. In light of this claim, my project has been to
determine, at least in a general way, what kind of community or what
institutional arrangements within a community might provide the
conditions for coherent ethical agency in western modernity. I would now
like to apply the work of Iiirgen Habermas to this project. Below I will briefly
introduce the arguments which I will make in this chapter. In this
introduction I will use the special terminology employed by Habermas
without explanation. In my elaboration of the arguments, I will explain these
terms.

Habermas argues that "the colonization of the lifeworld by the modern
subsystems of capitalist economy and the bureaucratic state produces
pathological side-effects. I argue that one of these side-effects is the crisis in
contemporary ethical reflection. In terms of my discussion of MacIntyre, we
can understand this colonization as disrupting the background which might
provide the basis for rational discussion of ethical issues. Habermas argues
that systems disrupt the lifeworld by organizing relationships among persons
in terms of instrumental imperatives instead of communicative imperatives.
A crucial question in evaluating Habermas's argument and applying it to my
problematic is: How particular is the lifeworld as the basis of consensus?
Here there are two possibilities. First, Habermas sometimes indicates that the
lifeworld is very particular. This interpretation makes Habermas sound very

much like MacIntyre and presupposes that coherent, modern ethical

127

128

reflection requires a single, coherent tradition as its basis. Second, Habermas
sometimes suggests that the lifeworld contains principles of communication
which are much more general than any single tradition. If the first
interpretation is correct, then it may be that the conditions of modernity are
incompatible with coherent ethical agency. If the second interpretation is
correct, then it may be possible to evolve an institutional setting in modernity
which might support coherent ethical agency. I will argue that both
interpretations are correct, but that the implications I mention for the first
interpretation need not hold.

Habermas's theory of social evolution, his discussion of society-wide
learning mechanisms and of stages of moral consciousness suggest the second
interpretation. In relation to my problematic, Habermas's work may be used
to support the claim that communities may be able to support a level of
moral consciousness which could oversee disputes on the level of
substantive or particular ethical systems as these disputes are played out
between cultural groups and within single agents. This would not require the
elimination of difference or the complete homogeneity of individual subjects.
The requirements for the kind of community which would support this level
of moral consciousness can be derived from the principle of communicative
action itself. The primary requirement would be for equality of opportunity
for meaningful engagement in discourse about ethical issues and social
arrangements. This would require addressing whatever blocks such equality
and would require institutional support.

I will now turn to an elaboration of these arguments and explain the

special terminology employed by Habermas. I will begin by explaining

129

Habermas's theory of the rationalization processes associated with modernity

and his theory of communicative rationality.

Rationalization Process

A broad characterization of Habermas's project might describe it as an
effort to understand the evolution of human society in terms of a process of
increasing rationalization. By 'a process of increasing rationalization' is
meant the subjection of dogmatic principles to critical reflection and their
replacement by increasingly universalistic principles. Habermas follows
Weber in explaining the passage from traditional to modern society as a
process of rationalization. Habermas stresses that this process unleases
opportunities for collective learning which have offered us greater control
over our environment through the development of technology and science.
Weber argues that modernization occurs through the breaking of the power
of myth and religion. Weber called this 'disenchantment'. It is a crucial part
of the rationalization process. When a society is under the sway of a mythical
world view, all things are understood as connected and part of a single
totality. All explanations refer to the world view. When the power of the
world view is broken, the method of explaining in terms of unifying
principles (God, Being, Nature) dissolves.82 The highest principles, which
were prereflectively accepted, now become questionable. In premodernity,
the prereflective world view provided the basis for social consensus. This
consensus had been the basis for the unity of premodern communities. Thus
Weber argues that the disenchantment which is the hallmark of modernity is

the end of community. If the basis of coherent ethical agency is social

 

82Habermas, Jttrgen, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1976), p. 105.

130

consensus and social consensus depends on a community based on a
prereflective world view, then modernity is indeed coextensive with the
disruption of ethical agency.

The dissolution of world views occurs as a single framework of
explanation and rationality splinters into three categories of explanation and
rationalization. This differentiation was first recognized by Kant as the
differentiation of science, morality and art. The unity of theoretical reason
and practical reason, e.g. science and morality, becomes an acute problem. In
so far as these differentiations are characteristic of modernity and seamlessly
connected to the disruption of world views, Weber identifies them with the
destruction of community and ethical agency.

Neither Weber or Habermas claim that the premodern, Western world
was dominated exclusively by a single monolithic worldview. Western
modernity evolved from precursors which were propelled by tremendous
changes in the way people lived. The new inventions and techniques made
possible by scientific methods and assumptions translated into great economic
success. The influence this success made possible helped to cushion and
transform the antagonism between advocates of scientific views and
advocates of anti-scientific religious views.33 The success of science and its
handmaiden, capitalism, swept through social relations and subjectivity
leaving a diluvial rubble (and rabble) in its wake.

Instead of a single world view, modernity ushers in an experiential and
explanatory framework which separates out three distinctive worlds. This

process is called 'decentering'. Each world is demarcated, in part, by contrast

 

83 An illustration of this symbiotic relationship between capitalism and
science can be seen in the story of the Wedgewood society. See Miller,
Jonathan and Van Loon, Borin, Darwin for Beginners (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1982), pp. 46 - 49.

131

with the others.84 The different worlds are the objective world, the social
world and the subjective world.35 Weber argues that it is a distinctively
modern achievement to be able to clearly take up the attitudes associated with
these worlds. Pre-modern individuals may confuse the objective, social and

subjective worlds.

We can recognize here the cognitive, normative, and expressive
elements of culture that are differentiated out; each according to
one universal validity claim. In these cultural value spheres are
expressed the modern structures of consciousness that emerged
from the rationalization of worldviews. As was pointed out
above, this rationalization led to the formal concepts of an
objective, a social, and a subjective world, and to the
corresponding basic attitudes in relation to a cognitively or
morally objectified external world and to a subjectivized inner
world. . . . The structures of a decentered (in Piaget's sense)
understanding of the world that are decisive for modernity can
be characterized by the fact that the acting and knowing subject is
able to assume different basic attitudes toward elements of the
same world. 36

Successful communication requires that participants in communication
share a background. Obviously, participants must share a common language,
or communicate through an interpreter who shares the languages of the
participants. The sharing of a language entails the sharing of many
assumptions which are not articulated, but which are presupposed in
communication. This background constitutes the sharing of a way of life
which provides meaning for utterances. Habermas calls this shared
background 'the lifeworld'. As rationalization processes occur, the lifeworld
becomes problematized. Practices which make sense in terms of a unified

worldview live on with practices which reflect the new decentering.

 

84Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume One, p. 51.
85Ibid., see Figure 10, p. 237.
861bid.. pp. 235 - 236.

132

Modern linguistic practices show the mark of decentering. Moderns can
perform different kinds of speech acts associated with the three worlds and
the attitudes appropriate to each. Moderns may intend to (1) convey some
information about some objective state of affairs; (2) make some claim about
a normative issue, or (3) express some experience to which the speaker has
privileged access. These correspond, respectively, to the objective, social and
subjective worlds.37 A child is taught to make these distinctions as he or she
is taught language. These attitudes are inherently connected.

Habermas claims that different validity claims are imbedded and
thematized in the three different kinds of speech acts and their associated
attitudes. A speech act is performed with the goal of communicating. The
speaker only bothers to speak for the purpose of establishing a relationship
with another person. Communication occurs successfully when the bearer
accepts the message. There are three different kinds of speech acts because
there are three different ways in which a hearer can accept the propositional
content of speech acts. Acceptance means something different depending on
which world, is being referenced. The objective world is referred to in a
constative speech act. Here it is implied that any neutral observer could
verify the claim made. The subjective world is referred to in an expressive
speech act. Here it is implied that only the speaker can verify the claim since
he or she is expressing a content to which he or she has privileged access.
However, the hearer can question whether or not the speaker is sincere or has
made an accurate portrayal. Finally, the social world is referred to in

regulative speech acts. Here it is implied that reference is made to legitimate

 

87lbid.. p. 307.

133

expectations.88 The general idea of a validity claim is that it is the implied
promise that reasons can be offered in support of a speaker's utterance.
However, Habermas argues that there are three particular validity claims, so
it is not simply the idea of the possibility of offering reasons. Part of becoming
a socialized, modern individual is the mastering of sorting out the three
worlds and engaging in the practice of challenging validity claims and
responding to the challenges of others.

Theory of Communicative Rationality

It should be noted that Habermas is combining Weber's theory of
rationalization processes with speech act theory to develop a theory of
rationality. It is crucial to notice that this theory of rationality entails that one
can rationally argue about a normative matter as well as a matter concerning
the natural world. The core notion of rationality has to do with the offering
of reasons which may be accepted or rejected by a partner in argumentation.
Rational argumentation which thematizes the objective world and aims at
securing "truth" or successful intervention in the objective world is

paradigmatic of modern western rationality,

But there are obviously other types of expressions for which we
can have good reasons, even though they are not tied to truth or
success claims. In contexts of communicative action, we call
someone rational not only if he is able to put forward an
assertion and, when criticized, to provide grounds for it by
pointing to appropriate evidence, but also if he is following an
established norm and is able, when criticized, to justify his action
by explicating the given situation in the light of legitimate
expectations. We even call someone rational if he makes
known a desire or an intention, expresses a feeling or a mood,
shares a secret, confesses a deed, etc., and is then able to reassure

 

881hld., pp. 305 - 319.

134

critics in regard to the revealed experience by drawing practical
consequences from it and behaving consistently thereafter.39

Habermas argues that rationality is embedded in the structure of
communication itself. Reason is not some other worldly entity, but is the
very process of making statements expressive of validity claims which can be
subjected to the challenge to discursively redeem those validity claims. To be
rational is to be able to successfully communicate or to successfully intervene
in the world. It requires certain competencies of speakers and hearers. The
competencies necessary for communicative rationality are relative to the
communicative community, i.e. to be rational in the modern or postmodern
world is different from being rational in the pre—modern world. For moderns
to be rational, we must be able to distinguish the three worlds mentioned
above; to make claims which refer to one of the worlds, to thematize one
world in each statement and be able to respond to validity claim challenges
and challenge the statements of others. This complex is referred to as
'communicative rationality'.

'Communicative action' is action which is oriented to reaching
understanding. Clearly, for all three kinds of speech acts to succeed, they
must be understood. Notice, however, that I may fail to properly use
language and thus fail to be understood. I may also utter some words which
are identifiable as part of some language, but without the aim of being
understood. Certainly, both possibilities are derivative of the aim of the use
of language, which is to be understood, and may be considered failures or
deviant. We presuppose in non-deviant communication that the point of
utterance is to be understood. Of course, most utterances are not a matter of

making a single speech act, but function in an exchange of speech acts. Here it

 

89ihid., p. 15.

135

becomes possible to begin to list certain presuppositions of discourse.

Following R. Alexy, Habermas has listed some of these.

(1.1) No speaker may contradict himself.

(1.2) Every speaker who applies predicate F to object A must be
prepared to apply F to all other objects resembling A in all
relevant aspects.

(1.3) Different speakers may not use the same expression with
different meanings.90

(2.1)Every speaker may assert only what he really believes.91

I may shout "Fire" in a crowded room, not because I believe that there is a
fire in the room, but because I wish to clear the room for some purpose other
than the promotion of the safety of its occupants. If the room clears
immediately, then we would say that my speech act was understood, but that I
had violated one or more of the presuppositions of speech usage. I may be
criticized for violating at least 21. However, there is some sense in which I
have been understood. How should we distinguish the difference between (a)
shouting "Fire" in a room in which there is a fire, (b) shouting "Fire" in a
room in which there is not a fire, but shouting "Fire" successfully produces
some intended result? Habermas introduces the notion of strategic action to
make this distinction. Strategic action is dependent on communicative action
is so far as it depends on the employment of a speech act which is understood
in light of a shared linguistic background. However, strategic action can be
distinguished from communicative action in so far as the success of a strategic

action is evaluated in terms of successful intervention in the world.

 

90Habermas, Jtirgen, "Discourse Ethics: Notes on Philosophical Justification,"
in Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr (eds.), The Communicative Ethics
Controversy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990). p. 84.

9llhid.. p. 85.

136

Habermas does not need to invoke the philosophy of consciousness in
order to make the distinction between communication action and strategic
action. This distinction can be made in terms of speech act theory. I do not
even need to frame the difference in terms of intentions. Rather, the
distinction can be made in terms of the evaluation and presuppositions of the
evaluation of the success of various kinds of speech acts. Strategic action is
action which aims at successful intervention in the social world. It employs
communicative action for this purpose. Strategic action and instrumental
action share the same orientation and aim. Instrumental action aims at
successful intervention in the objective or non-social world of things. Here
we can see that Habermas is explaining the Kantian distinction between a
subject-subject interaction and a subject-object distinction by focusing on the
performative aspect of speech. The crucial point is not that strategic action is
essentially unethical because it entails a subject-object relationship. What is
crucial for my problematic is that when communication occurs in the mode
of communicative action, the orientation to understanding implies reciprocal
agreement. This means that both parties must be able to question whatever
prevents agreement. This opens the way to discourse about problematic
assumptions. Rationalization processes create problems in the lifeworld. In
the mode of communicative action, these problems can be discursively
addressed and a new consensus reached. It is in this way that the lifeworld
can be repaired. In the mode of strategic action, discourse about problematic
assumptions are blocked. The orientation is not toward reaching
understanding, but successfully intervening in the world. This blockage
occurs in three ways. One, as strategic discourse, as embedded in the systems

of capitalist economy or bureaucratic state, constructs issues in such a way that

137

the raising of certain questions is ruled out. Two, the competency of subjects
to engage in discourse is disabled by their participation in these systems.
Three, inequality among participants precludes consensual discourse.

In relation to the distinction between lifeworld and system and the thesis
of colonization, the distinction between instrumental rationality and
communicative rationality assists in determining just how ethical
considerations are blocked in systems. The colonization thesis maintains that
problems resulting from rationalization processes have tended to be reduced
to technical problems which can be solved by instrumental rationality. The
problem is that some of these problems are problems of social integration.
Habermas argues that problems of social integration cannot be adequately
addressed by instrumental rationality. Within a systems paradigm, one
approaches objects of inquiry from the standpoint of instrumental rationality.
This means that one's goal is the successful bringing about of a chosen state of
affairs. The range of states 'of affairs which are appropriate to choose to bring
about are themselves determined within the standpoint of instrumental
rationality in conjunction with the particular system within which one is
operating.

Communicative rationality aims at understanding. In a sense, of course,
all communication aims at understanding and thus instrumental rationality
is subsumed under communicative rationality. However, systems constrain
what issues may be raised as legitimate areas of discourse and in this sense,
systems contradict, by their rationality structures, communicative rationality.
Thus, we find ourselves perplexed when we ask such questions as: is it right
that wealthy people are able to choose housing locations safely away from

dangerous landfills while poor people are unable to stop the introduction of a

138

dangerous landfill in their neighborhoods or move when one is discovered?
Is it right for thousands of people to die of dehydration when the amount of
the money that could save them is spent on sustaining one person's life
through extraordinary means, with a poor quality of life and short life
expectancy? Instrumental rationality and system imperatives block

discussion.

The Lifeworld
Before the possibility of repair of the lifeworld in modernity can be
explored, the notion of the lifeworld must be further explicated. Sometimes

Habermas suggests that the lifeworld is both very particular and inclusive.

Members of a social collective normally share a life-world. In
communication, but also in processes of cognition, this only
exists in the distinctive, pre-reflexive form of background
assumptions, background receptivities or background relations.
The life-world is that remarkable thing which dissolves and
disappears before our eyes as soon as we try to take it up piece by
piece. The life-world functions in relation to processes of
communication as a resource for what goes into explicit
expression. But the moment this background knowledge enters
communicative expression, where it becomes explicit knowledge
and thereby subject to criticism, it loses precisely those
characteristics which life-world structures always have for those
who belong to them: certainty, background character,
impossibility of being gone behind.92

The lifeworld is that stock of definitions and understandings that cannot
be thematized or made explicit without ceasing to be part of the lifeworld.
The lifeworld is that context for living of which we cannot become conscious.

Perhaps we can become conscious of something that was part of the lifeworld,

 

92Habermas, Jilrgen, "The Dialectics of Rationalization," in Peter Dews (ed.),
Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jiirgen Habermas (London: Verso,
1986). p. 109.

139

but at precisely that moment it ceases to be part of the lifeworld. The
lifeworld is "the horizon within which communicative actions are "always
already" moving."93 Language and culture constitute the lifeworld. One
cannot thematize the lifeworld as one can the objective, social or subjective
world because it is the context within which such references can occur.

The lifeworld is socially transmitted. It is the reservoir of interpretation
which allows particular situations to be commonly understood by members
of a communicative community. Of course, disagreement can occur, and
when it does, the resources of the lifeworld are employed by participants in
'order to achieve agreement about the meaning of the situation. Habermas's
'lifeworld' is more inclusive than a background of normative agreement and
role agreement. It encompasses the "preinterpreted domain of what is
culturally taken for granted"94 and thus constitutes the background for
experience, agreement and disagreement in the objective, social and
subjective worlds so far as these are related to consensus concerning norms,
values and ends. Habermas augments this description of the lifeworld by
adding that individual skills, or "know how," are also part of an individual's
lifeworld.95 The intuitive knowledge of how to behave in particular
situations, of problem-solving strategies, socially acceptable practices and
reliable expectations are all part of the lifeworld.

The above view of the lifeworld suggests that it is particular to a
communication community. The sharing of a lifeworld is indicated by the
ease with which two persons or more communicate. Furthermore, the

lifeworld is constantly being reworked through communication. New

 

93Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume Two, p. 119.
94lbid.. p. 125.
”Md. p. 135.

140

meanings are established and new connections forged. As this process occurs,
new groups and communities are being constructed as the sharers of a
lifeworld. This means that as modernization processes occurred, the
lifeworld came to include the differentiations which are characteristic of
modernity. In so far as we view the lifeworld in this inclusive way, the
lifeworld itself comes to contain the differentiations of modernity, including
science, morality and art and their respective rationalities. Thus, a simple
lifeworld/ system distinction is untenable.95 The lifeworld itself must contain
whatever must be presupposed in order for communication within even the
mode of instrumental rationality to be meaningful. What, then, are we to
make of the colonization thesis?

First, notice that Habermas does provide a way of understanding the
incoherence of modern ethical reflection. As rationalization processes
occurred, rationality itself was split in a way that cannot be put back together.
The lifeworld, which is our reservoir of meanings, contains conflicts which
disable communication. Since our role as agents in the world is not a single
role, but a role in which we sometimes have our feet in different and
conflicting rationalities, we cannot act as rational agents. We choose to be
ethical, or to be efficient, but there is no standpoint from which we can act
rationally. The problem resides in conflicts which are so basic to us that they
usually cannot be seen. It is only as they erupt in the seams between lifeworld
and system, e. g. in pathologies like identity crises, social disintegration and

conflicts reflected in questions raised in business ethics and medical ethics.

 

96For a summary of criticisms of the lifeworld/system distinction, see David M.
Rasmussen, Reading Habermas (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell,
1990), pp. 45 -54.

141

Through the steering media of money and power, social
relations in the lifeworld are monetarized and bureaucratized -
'juridification' (Verrechtlichung) is Habermas's word for the
latter process - and thus relentlessly adapted to the functional
requirements of the system. However, this colonization of the
lifeworld strikes back at the whole process of rationalization and
becomes pathological when it endangers the symbolic
reproduction of society. This is, for example, precisely what
happens as consumerism and competitive individualism create
such intense pressures for 'achievement' and for the
utilitarianization of all values that family structures collapse
under the pressure and/ or produce other pathological side-
effects in gender relations and the like. In a similar way, the
'juridification' of client and citizen roles through the welfare
state turns acting subjects and rightful claimants into dependent
objects of bureaucratic regulation in a way that impairs
autonomy, psychological health, and symbolically structured
affiliations and memberships.97

Three different pictures of the lifeworld are presented to us by Habermas:
(1) the lifeworld as the background for all meaningful utterance, (2) the
lifeworld as consisting of functional resources for cultural reproduction,
social integration and socialization, and (3) the lifeworld as the consisting of
the principles which regulate communication. It is my contention that the
way to understand these three pictures is in terms of the historicity of the
lifeworld itself.

It is clear that Habermas associates the lifeworld with communication.
Habermas understands communication through language use as a historical
development of the human species. The human species is the only historical
species, e.g. creating their way of life through the handing down of learned
ways. Thus, the processes of social reproduction, social integration and
socialization are necessary prerequisites for distinctively human being and

the reproduction of the human species. It is crucial to notice here that the

 

97Pusey, Michael, Jiirgen Habermas (London and New York: Tavistock
Publications, 1987), p. 108.

142

material reproduction of human beings as a species is premised on symbolic
reproduction which in turn is premised on communication. This is crucial
because it entails that the same competence for communication is distinctive
of the human species, e.g. a species-wide competence. This is important
because if an ethical ideal can be shown to underlie communication, then this
same ideal is presupposed in all communication. This ideal could not supply
particular norms and values, but it could supply an ideal process of discursive
argumentation about particular norms and values when these are
problematized and thereby made objects for discourse. The condition for
modern ethical agency would then be coincident with the conditions for this
process.

In so far as language is necessary for these processes, the lifeworld has a
history as the possibility for particular languages and particular schemes of
cultural reproduction, social integration and socialization. If we think of the
lifeworld as itself historical, then we find that the lifeworld of every human
being, throughout time, has always contained the structures which enabled
language and cultural reproduction. Thus, we might say that these structures
are always already there in- the lifeworld. Here we find that the lifeworld is
both historically particular and transcendental. It is transcendental only in
the sense that every communicatively competent human being shares the
basic structures of the lifeworld. It is historically particular since the
particular human beings always have particular and historically determined
languages and techniques for symbolic and material reproduction. When the
lifeworld is thought of in this way, then the three pictures of the lifeworld,
which I describe above, can be accommodated. Let me pick up the thread of

the discussion of rationalization and its effects.

143

The Theory of Colonization

Quite a long way down the road of humanity, the rationalization processes
of modernity occurred and. are still having their effects in western modernity.
Magical worldviews played a key role in symbolic reproduction, e.g. in
justifying social relationships and legitimizing leaders. As worldviews
became disenchanted, what was to replace them? Instead of leaders being
legitimized by divine placement, and hierarchical social policies being
reinforced by a view of a hierarchical natural order, Habermas's work suggests
that the communicative structures of the lifeworld held an alternative. That
alternative is premised on the language game of argumentation. The game is
that the conclusion resulting from the best argument will prevail. This game
is the basis of rationalization itself: magical worldviews are debunked as they
come into the light of good reasons. Here legitimation is based only on the
"force" of the better argument. Argumentation can provide a means of social
cohesion because all can put aside particular biases and interests, according to
the rules of the game, and attend only to the "authority" of the better reasons.
Since, of course, no one can put aside his or her interest, and since rational
agreement requires consent only on the basis of the better argument, then
only generalizable interests can be the object of rational agreement. Here we
find that Kant's principle of universalization is rediscovered as a
presupposition of argumentative discourse concerning norms.98

The theory of colonization suggests that rationalization processes

produced and produce a crisis in cultural reproduction. Traditions which

 

98Habermas, Jilrgen, "Discourse Ethics: Notes on PhilOSOphical Justification,"
in Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr (eds.), The Communicative Ethics
Controversy, p. 90.

144

ground social reproduction and social integration are exposed as irrational
and lose their legitimacy. Political systems supported by traditions falter and
thus are unable to unite a society in an organistic way. Two systems evolved
in the Western world both in response to the crises caused by rationalization
processes and as fuel for those same processes. These systems were
representative democracy and capitalism. Hegel clarifies the new patterns of
social interaction engendered by capitalism and their effects on subjectivity
and agency. Habermas argues that the bureaucratic state contributes to the
destruction of traditions by taking many of the tasks of socialization and social
integration, especially the tasks of the family, e. g. through childrearing tasks,
now taken over to a great extent in the schools.99 This furthers disrupts the
lifeworld as a reservoir of consensus upon which ethical reflection must
draw. Debates like that over the teaching of evolution in public schools may
be interpreted as pathological responses to the felt encroachment of an
impersonal system on keystones of social integration. The sharing of
religious views through the generations is a way of maintaining social
continuity. As this continuity is felt to be lost, individuals experience
isolation, alienation and loss of meaning. That shared reservoir of pre-
articulated assumptions disintegrates and communication is thereby disabled.

Habermas calls this process 'the colonization of the lifeworld'.

At every level, administrative planning produces unintended
unsettling and publicizing effects. These effects weaken the
justification potential of traditions that have been flushed out of
their nature-like course of development. Once their
unquestionable character has been destroyed, the stabilization of
validity claims can succeed only through discourse. The stirring
up of cultural affairs that are taken for granted thus furthers the

 

99Habermas, Jurgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), pp. 68 -
75.

145

politicization of areas of life previously assigned to the private
sphere. But this development signifies danger for the civil
privatism that is secured informally through the structures of
the public realm.100

So, the state takes over traditional functions and as it does it further
weakens the hold of traditional worldviews and thus creates greater need for
traditional functions to be taken over. The democratic state is itself
legitimized by the consent of the people. The government is there for the
pe0ple, all of the people, and thus it is accepted and supported. However,
Habermas points out that the state also has the function of supporting the
economic sector. "But this development signifies danger for civil privatism
that is secured informally through the structures of the public realm." The
problem here is that the state at once supports two opposing sectors: the
economic sector which is premised on private gain and the public sector
which is premised on the good for all. The problem occurs as citizens detect
that the government is supporting the private economic success of a certain
portion of the population. This delegitimizes the purported purpose of
democratic government. Recent outrage and fights over taxes evidence this
problem. Habermas's claim is that the combination of capitalism and
democracy creates a crisis for government which will not go away: economic
growth is the function of private goals of profit maximization, not the
generalizable interests of the population. Thus the state has the contradictory
aims of supporting private. profit maximization and the generalizable
interests of all citizens. Habermas calls this general state of affairs the
legitimation crisis. While democracy is premised on generalizable interests
which can be determined by open argumentation, private profit

maximization is not. Thus, the potential exists for democratic government to

 

1001bid., p. 72.

146

‘ be the institution which can enable the repair of the lifeworld, but as matters
stand, this potential is unrealizable.

Habermas's analysis of the legitimation crisis is important to my
problematic because rationalization processes have produced disturbances in
the lifeworld which disable coherent ethical agency. These same
rationalization processes held the potential for reworking the lifeworld in a
way that might have led to a new consensus over norms. Argumentation
may itself produce consensus. Democratic institutions might well have
played the role of institutional support of the production of this consensus.
However, because of the development of capitalism and the bureaucratic
state, this potential was derailed.

The problematization of ethical agency in modernity does not necessarily
result from the differentiations of modernity. Instead, this is a ”matter of the
particular, historical development of modern, western institutions. The
processes of coordinating action are correspondingly altered as systems
imperatives come to supplant lifeworld processes of consensual
interpretation and action coordination. Instead of consent and agreement
functioning as the norm by which action is determined, action is determined
according to the demands of the relevant system. Habermas's claim is that
the development of alternative or modified institutions is not a priori
precluded. The analysis of modernity in terms of lifeworld and system is
useful as a basis of critique of modern institutions and might be used in the

development of alternative institutions.

147

The Ideal Speech Situation

The lifeworld offers argumentation as a way of repairing itself by
producing valid outcomes. The validity of these outcomes are premised on
the presuppositions of argumentation itself. The very idea of argumentation
is that the best reasons win the day. The production of the best argument
presupposes a particular process of communication. The presentation and
effect of good reasons cannot be repressed. Thus, a certain situation for
argumentation is presupposed. Habermas has called this situation the ideal
speech situation. That this situation holds is presupposed in every occasion

of argumentation.

The very act of participating in a discourse, of attempting
discursively to come to an agreement about the truth of a
problematic statement or the correctness of a problematic norm,
carries with it the supposition that a genuine agreement is
possible. If we did not suppose that a justified consensus were
possible and could in some way be distinguished from a false
consensus, then the very meaning of discourse, indeed of
speech, would be called into question. In attempting to come to
a "rational" decision about such matters, we must suppose that
the outcome of our discussion will be the result simply of the
force of the better argument and not of accidental or systematic
constraints on discussion. This absence of constraint, this
exclusion of systematically distorted communication, Habermas
argues, can be characterized formally, that is in terms of the
pragmatic structure of communication.101

Following R. Alexy, Habermas has formulated the following rules which

capture the presuppositions of discourse.

(3.1) Every subject with the competence to speak and act is
allowed to take part in a discourse.

(3.2) a. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion
whatever.

 

101McCarthy, Thomas, "Translator's Introduction," in Jtlrgen Habermas,
Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), p. xvi.

148

b. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion
whatever into the discourse.
c. Everyone is allowed to expresses his attitudes, desires
and needs.

(3.3) No speaker may, by internal or external coercion, be
prevented from exercising his rights as laid down in
(3.1) and (3.2).102

While these rules may never be fully implemented in real argumentative
discourse, they are presupposed in argumentative discourse and thus present
ways to critique actual situations of discourse.

It is part of the rationalization process that the lifeworld becomes
progressively rationalized. This occurs as norms become problematized. An
unproblematic norm is one which is taken for granted unreflectively by some
community. Such norms are part of the lifeworld. Unproblematic norms are
unreflectively accepted as valid. There is no question about their validity.
The problem of the validity of norms only arises when the taken-for-
grantedness of the norm is disrupted by some event. Then, the validity of the
norm is open to question. "As they become problematized they lose their
taken-for-grantedness and are made the object of inquiry. I have drawn
attention to the distinction between an unproblematized norm and a
problematized norm to emphasize that ethical deliberation always results
from the raising of some question. It is this process which opens the way to
the rationalization of the lifeworld. As objects of inquiry, problematized
norms are subjected to rational inquiry.

My goal of determining the conditions for coherent ethical agency in
modernity was motivated, in part, by contemporary skepticism concerning

ethics as witnessed in the interminability of ethical discourse. This

 

102Habermas, Jtlrgen. "Discourse Ethics: Notes on Philosophical Justification,"
in Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr (eds.), The Communicative Ethics
Controversy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990), p. 86.

149

interminability revealed the crisis in ethical reflection and the incoherence of
the modern self. I accepted that the breakdown of traditions was part of the
crisis in ethical reflection. My understanding of the process of this breakdown
is deepened by the understanding of the rationalization' processes which
brought modernity about. In discussing the lifeworld, we see that it contains
a resource for the repair of normative structures. That resource is
argumentative discourse. The ideal speech situation and the rules of
discourse outlined above present the parameters within which problematized
norms may yield legitimized norms.

The ideal speech situation is not simply an exposition of the logical
requirements of argumentative discourse, but has ethical content in the form
of an ethical ideal. It is very important to notice what kind of an ethical ideal
is invoked in the claim that communication embodies an ethical ideal. The
ideal speech situation represents a procedural or situational norm as opposed
to a substantive norm. A substantive norm might be a concrete conception of
the good life or the concrete norms associated with a particular kinship role
in a particular society. A procedural or situational norm establishes that
some event or claim is to be endorsed if it results from a certain procedure or
setting. The validity or "goodness" of some event or claim is in direct
proportion to how closely the procedure or setting dictated in the normative
ideal is approximated. Notice that Habermas's conception of reason in
general is a procedural conception.103 Thus practical or normative claims
admit of truth in the same way that do claims about the objective world.104

Habermas can maintain a modern and useful distinction between social and

 

103Habermas, Jilrgen, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
(Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1987), pp. 314 - 315.

104Habcrrnas, Legitimation Crisis .p. 111.

150

objective/ natural phenomena while explaining the validity of normative
claims. Different kinds of phenomena are referred to, but the procedure or
setting which establishes the rationality of the claims and the grounds of
criticism is the same. This is extremely important for explaining the
"objectivity" of normative claims. Habermas can avoid an untenable
dualistic metaphysics like that Kant was required to construct, as well as
MacIntyre's claim of the necessity of a functionalist conception of persons and
his blurring of the social and objective worlds. Habermas can also avoid a
teleological philosophy of history like Hegel ultimately must lean on to make
sense of normative appeals. The difference between substantive and
procedural norms suggestsa model of ethical agency which is appropriate for
modernity. The implications of this difference can be articulated by

discussing different senses of 'community'.

Community

I have used the term 'community' ambiguously. I would like to clarify
the two ways in which it has been used.105 Individuals obtain the norms and
values which they employ in action and evaluation through communication
with others. This process is evident in the use of 'community' to refer to all
those who share substantive norms and values. This sense of community
may be unambiguously referred to as a 'substantive ethical community'.
Although individuals in a‘substantive ethical community take up norms and

values through communication, this occurs in a prereflective way. Norms

 

105In what follows I am indebted to Fraser's discussion of a distinction which
she finds in Habermas's work between normatively secured and
communicatively achieved action. See Fraser, "What's Critical About Critical
Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender,” New German Critique, no. 35.
Spring/Summer, 1985, pp. 120.

151

and values are prereflectively incorporated into an individual's personality
during childhood socialization. In this process, communication functions as
the vehicle for the reproduction of social consensus. In reference specifically
to a substantive ethical community, norms and values are not problematized;
they are assimilated, employed and referred to. They are accepted as valid
without that validity having been challenged.

In modernity, individuals interact and coordinate actions with others
from diverse substantive ethical communities. Furthermore, even within
substantive ethical communities, norms and values constitutive of the
community may become problematized. When this occurs, a metalevel
discussion may be necessary before action or evaluation is agreed on. This
move to the level of discourse represents the move from normatively

regulated action to communicatively achieved action.

The concept of normatively regulated action does not refer to the
behavior of basically solitary actors who come upon other actors
in their environment, but to members of a social group who
orient their action to common values. The individual actor
complies with (or violates) a norm when in a given situation
the conditions are present to which the norm has application.
Norms express an agreement that obtains in a social group. All
members of a group for whom a given norm has validity may
expect of one another that in certain situations they will carry
out (or abstain from) the actions commanded (or proscribed).
The central concept of complying with a norm means fulfilling a
generalized expectation of behavior. The latter does not have
the cognitive sense of expecting a predicted event, but the
normative sense that members are entitled to expect a certain
behavior.105

The move to communicatively achieved action represents a rupture in a
substantive ethical community. A substantive ethical community in which

such ruptures accumulate, unresolved, is one in which the social consensus

 

106Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One, p. 85.

152

of norms and values is disrupted and can no longer unproblematically serve
as the condition for individual and collective action. MacIntyre's analysis of
modern "corrununities" as unable to provide the basis for ethical action is
very similar to this analysis of substantive ethical communities in which
normatively regulated action has broken down.

The second sense of 'community' refers to what Habermas calls an 'ideal
communication community'. In the ideal communication community the
capacity of modern agents to raise validity claims in speech is developed.
This is a capacity which is enjoyed despite differences in the substantive
ethical communities to which individuals belong and despite the level of
disruption of an individual's substantive ethical community. It is a
universal moment. It constitutes a community to which all modern speakers
belong because it designates a capacity all possess. Furthermore, this
commonality has a pragmatic dimension in so far as it can be used to critique
efforts to repair disruptions in substantive ethical communities or effect
consensual action among individuals in diverse substantive ethical
communities. -'

Habermas's theory of communicative action suggests that it is the very
procedure of obtaining agreement which confers validity upon some claim.
Communicative rationality is formal in the sense of being empty of any
normative content except that which indicates the conditions under which
agreement must be made. The content comes from the specific cultural
norms and values of the participants. While this conception is sensitive to
the claim that norms and values always reflect particular historical
communities, it has a universal moment in its specification of the formal

conditions which must be met. What this means practically is that

153

normative validity is achieved by reference to the relationship among
participants which ensures that each is free and able to challenge any claims
made. The challenge to modernity is to actually develop a society in which
all members are able to participate fully in argumentation. There are two
related requirements. (1) That individuals have the competence to engage in
communicative action. (2) That institutional arrangements ensure that
mechanisms exist for full and free participation in discursive argumentation
in a modern society.

We have seen how economic inequality is an obstacle for the state as the
institution for the reworking of the lifeworld. However, economic inequality
is also an obstacle for the pursuit of open argumentation because it entails
unequal access to the means of communication. Access to universities,
publishing houses, mass media and expert discourses are overwhelmingly
aligned with access to money. Rule 3.3 requires the right to equal
participation in discourse. Here, again, we find that the potential of the state
is undermined. The state produces a system of clients and dependents who
are defined by those with the power of the state. In itself, this represents an
inequality in participation in discourse and undermines the potential for
competent participation on the part of clients.

The condition for coherent ethical agency in modernity is an institutional
arrangement which will facilitate the reworking of the lifeworld. Such
reworking can only be brought about in modernity through the process of
argumentative discourse within the parameters set out in rules 3.1 - 3.3. The
bringing about of the setting described by these rules will itself require
institutional change. The constraint on discourse brought about by capitalism

must be challenged. This need not entail the elimination of markets, but

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must widen the range of topics open to public discourse and action. In so far
as economic inequality impedes equal access to discourse, economic
inequality must addressed. Coherent ethical agency in modernity requires the
practical implementation of a setting for discourse which will enable the
participation of all concerned and thus confer legitimacy on the results of

discourse.

Problems and Questions
Habermas's conception of practical rationality, as expressed in the notion E

of the ideal speech situation, is promising as a conception of practical I

rationality which might to be adequate to the historical conditions of

modernity, the distinctively modern subject and the relationship between self

and community which obtains in modernity. However, several problems

and questions, some of which are mentioned above, remain. In the following

chapter, I will consider these problems and questions. Three specific issues

will be addressed.
First, I will consider the objection that Habermas's ideal speech situation

constitutes an empty formalism and thus is susceptible to the same objections

that plague Kant's conception of practical rationality. The ideal speech

situation represents a procedural, as opposed to a substantive, notion of

practical rationality. The concern is that the absence of substantive content

will leave no norms to guide ethical reflection. I have argued that norms

arise out of particular communities or ways of life. The ideal speech situation

seems to ignore this insight and thus presents the impossible task of making

ethical judgments without any normative standards to inform

decisionmaking.

155

Second, I will consider the problem of institutionalizing the ideal speech
situation. I have criticized MacIntyre and Hegel for not adequately addressing
the institutional embodiment of their conceptions of practical rationality. In
considering the first problem I recognize that Habermas must be able to escape
the criticism of Kant; in considering this problem, I recognize that Habermas
must be able to escape the criticisms of MacIntyre and Hegel, at least on the
issue of the concrete realization of practical rationality in modernity. The
notion of the ideal speech situation contains two specific requirements for
institutional embodiment. The institutional embodiment must enable the
participation of all in discourse and eliminate coercion from discourse. The
colonization thesis will be important to consider in meeting these
specifications.

The third problem is related to the first problem. The colonization thesis
maintains that the subsystems of state bureaucracy and capitalist economy
have participated in the destruction of substantive ethical communities. One
might object that the institutionalization of the ideal speech situation will
have a similar effect. The worst case scenario is that the subjection of
particular norms to rational critique will entail the destruction of particular
communities. What will remain will be a mass society which will lack
resources for the production of meaning and thus motivation for action. The
successful institutionalization of the ideal speech community would thus
entail the end of community, the end of the individual and the end of ethical
agency.

Responding to these problems and questions is a task which I will not be
able to accomplish fully . However, I believe that I can respond to them in a

programmatic way which will, at least, allow for a tentative evaluation of the

156

success of the proposal that the notion of the ideal speech situation represents
a conception of practical rationality adequate for modernity. I will consider
these matters in the next chapter. I will preface my discussion with a
statement of how the Habermas proposal relates to the problem of modern

ethical skepticism and to MacIntyre.

Problems and Questions

Ethical Skepticism

I originally presented the problem of modern ethical skepticism as the
problem of the interminability of modern ethical reflection. I suggested,
following MacIntyre, that this problem resulted from the absence of
consensus concerning norms. I maintained that norms arise from particular
ways of life which are shared by members of a substantive ethical community.
The conclusion which MacIntyre draws from these considerations is that
modernity precludes coherent ethical reflection in so far as it disrupts small
communities within which consensual norms can develop. MacIntyre finds
that the bureaucratic state and capitalist economy contribute to the disruption
of these communities and thus he is in agreement with Habermas to a great
extent. The special problem which MacIntyre's view entails is the problem of
the pluralism of modernity. For MacIntyre, the maintenance of consensual
norms is precluded in modernity, not only because state bureaucracy and
capitalism disrupt communities, but also because as persons interact with
others from diverse traditions, they incorporate pieces from those traditions
into their ethical frameworks. These pieces cannot be melded into a coherent
whole and thus ethical subjects are incoherent. The problem of ethical
skepticism then, is a problem of the "purity" of cultural and moral traditions.
Thus MacIntyre's only advice is to form small groups. Within these groups,
coherent, pure ethical schemes may develop.
Now we can clearly see why MacIntyre's view is pessimistic concerning
ethical agency in modernity. On MacIntyre's view, coherent ethical agency

cannot tolerate a plurality of traditions. When persons interact, the

157

158

coherence of their ethical schemes is disrupted and they become incoherent
ethical subjects. Ethical discourse is interminable because this
incoherenceprecludes a set of consensual norms which might function as
premises for argumentation. Three solutions suggest themselves. (1) The
formation of small substantive ethical communities which are isolated
insome way from other communities. (2) The formation of substantive
ethical communities, not necessarily small, which are impervious to
"contamination." (3) The formation of a worldwide single moral tradition.
All of these suggestions depend on substantive ethical communities as the
basis of coherent ethical reflection.

In the notion of the ideal speech situation, Habermas offers a way of
conceiving of coherent ethical reflection and agency in modernity which is
not dependent on the exclusivity of substantive ethical communities. The
ideal speech situation describes a formal setting which expresses a conception
of practical rationality unbound from particular substantive communities.
The ideal speech situation is not an alternative to substantive ethical
communities. The ideal speech situation is purely formal; it does not express
any substantive ethical content. Only substantive ethical communities,
coherent or otherwise, can provide normative content. The ideal speech
situation describes the setting within which substantive norms can be
subjected to critique in terms of the setting. The ideal speech situation
describes the conditions under which rational reflection and argumentation
can occur. Conclusions resulting from the setting are accepted as valid, not
because they can be deduced from foundational premises, but because they
have survived open rational argumentation. Before proceeding, it may be

useful to recall the two primary characteristics of the ideal speech situation:

159

(1) speech may in principle include all who might be affected by the matter
under discussion; and (2) coercion is absent. Habermas claims that these
characteristics will have the result that only pr0posals which are in the
general interest will be legitimized. Reasoned consensus would emerge only
for generalizable proposals.

The ideal speech situation does not require that participants in discourse
share a tradition. Ethical decisions can be made piecemeal; they need not
reflect a coherent approach, except for that expressed in the ideal speech
situation itself. If the ideal speech situation is adequate as a conception of
practical rationality for modernity, it still remains to be seen whether or not it
can be embodied and made operative. However, before this challenge can be
addressed, an objection to the adequacy of the ideal speech situation for

practical rationality must be considered.

First Objection: Empty Formalism

The ideal speech situation provides a purely formal setting. It provides no
ethical content except that which can be discerned in its commitment to
rationality and equality. The notion of equality is expressed in the provision
that everyone be allowed to participate effectively in discourse. However, this
meager proscription hardly provides the kind of content which can guide
normative discourse. Here we find that the ideal speech situation is open to
the very criticism which revealed the inadequacy of Kant’ s conception of
practical rationality. Both Kant and Habermas provide conceptions of
practical rationality which embrace a universal rationality. If we are to accept
the ideal speech situation as capturing a conception of practical rationality

which is adequate for modernity, the charge of empty formalism must be

160

answered. In developing my criticism of Kant on this issue, I raised the
following problems. (1) Kant’ s conception of practical rationality relies on a
conception of the moral subject which eliminates any basis for agency because
it posits an unbridgeable gap between the concrete, historical agent and an
ahistorical moral subject. (2) Kant’ 5 test of universalizability ignores that the
construction of a state of affairs as an ethical problem necessarily refers to a
particular social and historical setting. (3) Kant’ s conception of the self falsely
dichotomizes the self into a purely rational being and a bundle of irrational

desires.

Response to the Charge of_.Empty Formalism

I will argue that Habermas can successfully respond to the charge of empty
formalism. Indeed, the great advantage of the ideal speech situation is its lack
of content. Since the ideal speech situation lacks content and only provides a
framework for discourse, it can function as the setting in which persons from
diverse communities can engage in settling normative disputes. It thus
directly responds to the problem of the pluralism of moral traditions which
for MacIntyre signals the end of practical rationality. However, the charge of
empty formalism is a serious threat to Habermas's conception of practical
rationality since it suggests that the absence of normative content will have
the result that nothing will be settled in the ideal speech situation. Perhaps
the best way to approach an answer to this objection is by reviewing
Habermas's own criticisms of Kant, discussing whether or not Habermas
escapes these criticisms and, if so, what this means for the charge of empty

formalism. I find that Habermas makes two distinct criticisms of Kant. The

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161

first objects to Kant's project of universalizability on the grounds that a single

subject cannot successfully perform this task by himself or herself.

Subjects capable of moral judgment cannot test each for himself
alone whether an established or recommended norm is in the
general interest and ought to have social force; this can only be
done in common with everyone else involved. The
mechanisms of taking the attitude of the other and of
internalizing reach their definitive limit here. Ego can, to be
sure, anticipate the attitude that alter will adopt toward him in
the role of a participant in argumentation; by this means the
communicative actor gains a reflective relation to himself, as we
have seen. Ego can even try to imagine to himself the course of
a moral argument in the circle of those involved; but he cannot
predict its results with any certainty. Thus the projection of an
ideal communication community serves as a guiding thread for
setting up discourses that have to be carried through in fact and
cannot be replaced by monological mock dialogue.107

Habermas is arguing here that valid normative conclusions can only be
achieved through actual discourse with others.103 The single subject cannot
take the attitude of a disinterested absolute subject and bracket his or her
interests, particular norms and desires in performing the thought experiment
described in the test of universalizability. Habermas's conception of the self,
in contrast to Kant's conception of the self, informs this criticism. While
Habermas claims that the modern self is capable of rational argumentation,
he conceives of this capacity as belonging to an embodied individual who has
interests, commitments and desires which cannot be divorced from the self as
practical reasoner. The self brings his or her embodied individuality to the
ideal speech situation as do the other participants. The self cannot assume an

Archimedean standpoint from which to judge any particular norms or

 

107Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume 2, p. 95.

l(’E‘Sisscla Bok's MW applies this

insight in an interesting and fruitful way. Bok, Sissela (New York: Vintage
Books, 1979).

162

claims. The ideal speech situation is not a thought experiment, but an actual
engagement with others. The requirement that all persons may engage in the
ideal speech situation is not a nicety to ensure good will, but an essential
component of normative discourse. It is the process of subjecting normative
proposals to actual critique which confers validity upon successful proposals.
Habermas’s procedural conception of rationality in general is witnessed here.
Both claims to scientific truth and to normative rightness are fallible and
subject to revision. Neither pretend to absoluteness, but only claim to
represent the best rational judgment of a community of inquirers.109 That
community of inquirers is always a particular community composed of only
a certain set of persons. The upper limit on participants is that set of persons
alive at the time, althoughuthe interests of future generations, or past
generations, may be represented by living participants. Thus, the community
of inquirers does not pretend to tap into the absolute Truth or absolute
Rightness, but only the best judgment which can be achieved through
rational argument. In the absence of a pure rational nature which may be
tapped by particular agents, the presence of other arguers provides the test
which Kant conceived of in terms of a single agent. "What was intended by
the categorical imperative can be made good by projecting a will-formation
under the idealized conditions of universal discourse."110

Habermas's second criticism of Kant charges Kant with employing the

assumptions of the philosophy of consciousness.

 

109The acknowledged influence of Pierce on Habermas is apparent in
Habermas's conception of rationality. See Pierce, Charles Sanders, Collected
Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1931 - 1935), 5.311, pp. 186 - 187.

llOHabcrmas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2, p. 95.

163

Kant and the utilitarians operated with concepts from the
philosophy of consciousness. Thus they reduced the motives
and aims of action, as well as the interests and value
orientations on which they depended, to inner states or private
episodes. . . In fact, however, motives and ends have something
intersubjective about them; they are always interpreted in the
light of a cultural tradition. . . But if motives and ends are
accessible only under interpretations dependent upon traditions,
the individual actor cannot himself be the final instance in
developing and revising his interpretations of needs. Rather,
his interpretations change in the context of the lifeworld of the
social group to which he belongs; little by little, practical
discourses can also gear into this quasi-natural process. The
individual is not master of the cultural interpretations in light
of which he understands his motives and aims, his interests and
value orientations, no more than he disposes over the tradition
in which he has grown up. Like every monological procedure,

the monological principle of Kantian ethics fails in the face of
this. . .111

Again we can understand the difference between Kant's and Habermas's
position in terms of their different conceptions of the self and the
relationship between the self and its community. The philosophy of
consciousness mistakenly posits the self as able to produce its motives and
aims out of itself. This ontological and methodological individualism is
refuted as soon as one realizes that the meaning of the individual's motives
and aims are intelligible only in light of reference to that individual's social
and historical setting, and the community or social groups which constitute
the individual's sphere of action. I made a similar argument in Chapter Two.
If we think simply about how the agent conceives of his or her aims, we
discover that the articulation of these aims points to a universe of discourse
which transcends the individual and employs terms which refer to the

individual's social setting.

 

1111bid.. pp. 95 - 96.

164

The fact is that pe0ple are more than animals, and what makes
up the extra is their self-understanding, the understanding in
terms of which their plans and aspirations are formed. But this
understanding is itself social. People think of themselves and
their lives, including those career plans which are most properly
called 'self-chosen', in irreducibly social concepts. For example, a
life as self-concerned as one devoted to making money and
owning property is necessarily conceived in terms of 'buying',
'selling', 'banking', 'interest', all of which are social not
individualistic concepts. In fact, deprived of social relations, it is
doubtful if the individual could have a recognizably human life
at all.112

Habermas argues that Kant treats motives, aims, interests and values as
private possessions when in fact they are always the attributes of a
community. While we may experience motives, aims, interests and values as
our private possessions, this experience is illusory. The content of this
experience has a social character and thus presumes and depends on a
community outside of the agent.

The illusion of the ahistorical and personal character of value experience
supports the notion that the subject is a point of absolute valuation and thus
cannot be challenged. Valuation arises magically under this view or as a
result of the givenness and unfreedom of our instinctual natures. Once this
conception of the relationship between self, the self’ 5 value experiences and
the self’ 5 community is debunked, and valuation is exposed as a public
experience, then a universalist ethics quite different from Kant’ s can be
envisioned.

The difference between Kant's and Habermas's rationalism is clarified by
giving appropriate weight to Habermas's reference to will-formation.
Engagement in discourse in the ideal speech situation is a process in which

there is not a sharp distinction between achieving a conclusion to an

 

112Graham, Gordon, Contemporary Social Philosophy (Oxford, UK and New
York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 33.

165

argument and participating in the modification of one's affective states.
Desires, motives, aims and norms are modifiable through argumentation.
Thus, Habermas does not conceive of a rigid dichotomy between the rational
self and the affective self. This dichotomy is dissolved by recognizing the
social character of reason and affect. Our ”personal” desires and values are
educable. That educability demonstrates for Habermas the inadequacy of
Kant’ s monological test and argues for its replacement by public normative
discourse.

Habermas’s universalist ethics does not posit a fundamental antagonism
between the good life and the happy life as does Kant because it presents
motives, aims, interests and values as themselves modifiable through
rational normative discourse. For example, suppose one discovers that the
grapes one enjoyed yesterday were purchased at the cost of the health of farm
workers. This discovery may influence one’s future desire, or lack of desire,
for grapes. Here there is an implicit argument which appeals to the
normative claim that good health for all has moral weight. There is clearly a
universalist appeal here. The health of everyone is important. If we imagine
this issue being made the subject of normative discourse in the ideal speech
situation, we will have an example of how normative content is brought to
the ideal speech situation, as well as exemplifying the intermingling of affect
and reason. Here normative argumentation is initiated by the report of
actual conditions and the claim that these conditions are intolerable.
Normative content is brought to the argument by the claim that the value of
good health for all has moral weight. This universalist appeal need not rely
on the imagination or moral sophistication of a single person engaged in

solitary ethical reflection. The ideal speech situation requires that all persons

166

be allowed to state their case. Thus, the claimants will be present to make the
case that they believe that their health is just as important as the health and
pursuit of livelihood of others. Grape growers may object that their
livelihood would be threatened if the methods of cultivation of grapes were
changed in order to accommodate the health concerns of the workers. This
argument will require empirical data as well as appeal to normative claims
and subjective experience. This example demonstrates that argument in the
ideal speech situation will always be particular argument and that the
particularity of the argument and the arguers will determine what norms are
appealed to and the actual course of the argument. The intermingling of
affect and reason is witnessed as well. We can imagine that the success of the
farm workers' case may depend on obtaining a recognition on an affective
level by the growers that the experience and health of the farm workers has
moral weight on a par with their own interests. Habermas's criticism of the
assumptions of the philosophy of consciousness entails that rational
argument is not antithetical to hermenuetic and affective engagement.
Resolution of normatively charged problem situations which does not
proceed through rational argument can only proceed through coercion.
Coercive resolution is clearly not ethical resolution. Thus, however difficult
the process of ethical argumentation may be and however often the process
may fail, the alternative is coercion and force.

These two criticisms which Habermas makes of Kant demonstrate the
great differences between their views. Kant’s formalism amounts to the
imaginative application of the standard of consistency by a single agent; it
cannot pick out some particular action as the ethical action without assuming

some particular setting and assuming some particular ethical content. Kant’s

167

formalism issues ethical judgments only through the surreptitious
importation of ethical content.

The ideal speech situation does escape the charge of an empty and
impotent formalism. While the specifications of the ideal speech situation
are purely formal and lack particular normative content, content is not
lacking because it is brought to discourse by the participants. Content is not
surreptitiously smuggled in; no veil is applied. Participants engage as
interested parties. The commitment of the ideal speech situation is that
participants in a dispute over a normative issue engage in appeal to reason
which an embodied agent could accept as having force. Coercion and
exclusion are ruled out. Participants must engage in the hermenuetic task of
presenting their points of view and reasons in a way that can be accepted by
the other participants. Rational agreement is reached when all members
have agreed to the force of the better argument. Legitimacy is thereby
conferred upon the result. Here we see the importance of the relationship
between practical rationality, self and community which Habermas projects in
the notion of the ideal speech situation. The very project of engagement in
the task of presenting and evaluating arguments impacts the subjective
experience of the participants. Thus, the process of argumentation is not a
process in which pure rational agents engage. The process of participation in
the ideal speech situation is an educative and self-transformative experience
for participants. The motives, aims, interests and values of the participants
cannot be left on the coat rack as participants enter the ideal speech situation.

Embodied, full-blooded, particular participants engage in discourse.

168

Second Objection: The Problem of Institutional Realization
How is the ideal speech situation to be embodied? I would like to begin an
answer to this question by considering Habermas's own discussion of

counterinstitutions.

Counterinstitutions

Habermas suggests that counterinstitutions have taken on the task of
providing a social space wherein discourse approximating the ideal speech
situation can occur. Habermas uses the term 'counterinstitution' to refer to
conflicts and protests which are not issues of distribution; they are not

demands for a different distribution of goods.

In the past decade 0r two, conflicts have developed in advanced
Western societies that deviate in various ways from the welfare-
state pattern of institutionalized conflict over distribution. They
no longer flare up in domains of material reproduction; they are
no longer channeled through parties and associations; and they
can no longer be allayed by compensations.113

These conflicts and protests fall outside the usual way of talking about
justice in liberal societies.114 Since these conflicts and protests are not about
money or the distribution of services, they are not easily interpreted as the
irrational and arbitrary expressions of selfish, single individuals. Where this
later kind of interpretation is possible, potentially normative claims are
reconstructed as interest-group conflict which is not amenable to rational
discourse because it is based on the irrational desires of merely private
individuals. Interest-group conflicts construct individuals as clients or

consumers who must be dealt with strategically, not as persons raising

 

113HabermaS. The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2, p. 392.

114Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press: 1990), pp. 16 - l8.

169

normative issues which are resolvable only through rational, consensual
discourse about those normative issues. Where conflict and protest can be
constructed as about distributive issues, normative discourse is derailed and a

case of colonization of the lifeworld occurs.

In its process of conflict resolution, interest-group pluralism
makes no distinction between the assertion of selfish interest
and normative claims to justice or right. Public policy dispute is
only a competition among claims, and "winning" depends on
getting others on your side, making trades and alliances with
others, and making effective strategic calculations about how
and to whom to make your claims. One does not win by
persuading a public that one's claim is just. This strategic
conception of policy discussion fosters political cynicism: those
who make claims of right or justice are only saying what they
want in clever rhetoric.115

The conflicts and protests which Habermas calls counterinstitutions are
unlike interest-groups in that they are about ways of life and distinctively
normative issues which resist translation into terms which might make
them appear resolvable by instrumental reason. Thus, they constitute
moments of resistance to the colonization of the lifeworld. The issues raised
by counterinstitutions "have to do with quality of life, equal rights,
individual self-realization, participation, and human rights."116 Habermas
claims that these issues are raised by the peace movement, the antinuclear
movement, the environmental movement, religious fundamentalism, the
tax-protest movement, the women's movement, minority movements, e.g.
the elderly, gays, the handicapped and other movements.117 Certainly in the

United States, movements associated with racial118 or ethnic differentiations

 

1151hid. p. 72.
116Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume TWO. p- 392-
ll71bid., p. 393.

1131 use the terms 'race’ or ‘racial’ with hesitation. I recognize that there are
difficulties with these terms.

170

are among the most important in raising the kind of distinctively normative
issues that Habermas associates with counterinstitutions. Habermas also
includes as having international importance "autonomy movements
struggling for regional, linguistic, cultural, and also religious
independence."119 Habermas means by 'counterinstitutions' these kinds of
movements. _

Habermas's discussion of counterinstitutions is very brief. However, I
find that the notion of counterinstitution suggests that these movements
have at least three different functions. These three functions are: (1) to
provide resistance to the colonization of the lifeworld, (2) to provide a place
for normative argumentation, e.g. a place in which the ideal speech situation
is approximated, and (3) to provide an opportunity for the development of
social groups which might be the locus for development of the capacity of
individuals to engage in effective normative discourse and for the
recognition, articulation and development of group norms which might
provide content for normative discourse. I would like to focus especially on
the third function.

The movements respond to problems and fears which raise questions
about ways of life and specific normative issues, but they also respond to the
"cultural impoverishment" of everyday life.120 Here I interpret Habermas as
drawing attention to the reduction of opportunity for communicative
interaction which occurs as the colonization of the lifeworld proceeds. Public
discourse is reduced to interest-group strategic posturing. Private institutions

like the family become mere resting places which are cut off from community

 

119Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume TWO. [3. 393.
1201bid., p. 395.

171

and political life, and are delegitimized as spheres of normative engagement
and authority by the encroachment of expert discourses. Thus, while the
public sphere is reduced as a political sphere available for normative
discourse by the reduction of politics to interest-group posturing, the private
sphere also is subjected to constriction as a possible place for normative
discourse. I now want to address the impact which this constriction of
opportunities for normative discourse has on the capacities of individuals to
engage in normative discourse.

I have argued that normative agency shifts in premodernity from being
informed by the givennessof social roles to being a matter of the exercise of
the capacities of the individual to engage in normative argumentation. In
modernity, the condition for ethical agency thus becomes intimately related
to opportunities for development of the capacity to engage in normative
argumentation. Thus it becomes important to notice that in contemporary
Western societies, opportunities for the development of the capacity to
engage in normative argumentation are limited. This limitation is a
function of the constriction of the public and private realms as places for
normative engagement. Counterinstitutions function as opportunities to
engage in normative discourse with the goal of impacting specific issues and
concerns, but they also function as places for individuals to develop the
capacities to engage in normative dispute.

Developing the capacity to engage in normative argumentation involves
practice in actually making normative arguments, but it also requires a
commitment to some norms. Here we can see the import of MacIntyre's
critique of modernity. Norms are always particular norms. The principles

which govern normative argumentation are universal, but the norms which

172

are subject to discussion are particular. The principles which govern
normative argumentation are embedded in the notion of rationality itself
and thus are always already present and operative. However, norms are not
always already present and thus must come from somewhere. The
somewhere from which norms come are concrete ways of life. Individuals
develop their identities as participants in particular concrete ways of life and
thus the norms which an individual accepts have a quality of givenness.
Habermas differs from MacIntyre in his appreciation of the different capacities
of pre-modern and modern individuals. Modern individuals have the
capacity to subject their norms to reflection and thus subject them to critique
and possible modification. This process occurs through the subjection of
norms to rational argumentation. What is crucial to notice here is the
intimate connection between an individual's norms, the way of life which
informs those norms, and the individual's identity. As an individual goes
through the process of subjecting his or her norms to rational critique, this
process impacts the individual's way of life and his or her self-identity. Since,
as was pointed out in the discussion of the first objection, a way of life is not
an individual's possession, but the possession of a group of people, the group
which the individual identifies with is involved and problematized. Thus,
an individual who modifies his or her normative commitments is
simultaneously involved in the process of change of identity and change of
group identification. At this point we can begin to see that the role which
Habermas envisions for counterinstitutions goes beyond the resolution or

confrontation of specific problems and fears.

Something that is expressed rather blatantly in the
manifestations of the psychomovement and renewed religious
fundamentalism is also a motivating force behind most

173

alternative projects and many citizens' action groups - the
painful manifestations of deprivation in a culturally
impoverished and one-sidedly rationalized practice of everyday
life. For this reason, ascriptive characteristics such as gender,
age, skin color, neighborhood or locality, and religious affiliation
(sic) serve to build up and separate off communities, to establish
subculturally protected communities supportive of the search
for personal and collective identity. The revaluation of the
particular, the natural, the provincial, of social spaces that are
small enough to be familiar, of decentralized forms of commerce
and despecialized activities, of segmented pubs, simple
interactions and dedifferentiated public spheres - all this is
meant to foster the revitalization of possibilities for expression
and communication that have been buried alive.121

Counterinstitutions function as places for the following simultaneous
processes: normative argument; the formation of new self-identities for
individuals; and the recognition, formation or modification of social groups
whose members share a way of life or are in the process of forging or
modifying a way of life. "Consciousness-raising" groups of the sixties and
seventies among women and Chicanos are paradigmatic of the simultaneity
of these processes. These groups functioned as opportunities for individuals
to explore and re-create their self-identities as members of groups of persons
also involved in this proceSs. Some of these groups explicitly recognized that
they were engaged in the testing of norms which had been part of their self-
identities, and that they were explicitly engaged in forming new social groups
and individual identities which were the product of their collective norm
testing. Some of the pitfalls these groups encountered are useful in revealing
the interrelationship between the subjection of norms to critique and the
legitimation of that process of critique in terms of the ideal speech situation. I
would like now to turn to a consideration of one of these pitfalls in order to

demonstrate that interrelationship and to go some way toward bolstering my

 

1211bid.

174

refutation above of the objection that Habermas's notion of the ideal speech
situation is abstract and thus ignores the particularity of norms. Discussion of
this pitfall will also reveal the inadequacy of counterinstitutions as a way of
realizing the ideal speech situation. I will refer to this pitfall as the problem

of the construction of pseudo—commonalities.

Pseudo-commonalities

Many problems face anyone or any group which engages in the process of
exploration of commonalities which might be the basis of group membership
and thus the basis of a collective project of norm critique, self-re-creation, and
group re-creation. One is that pseudo-communities may be described which
in fact mask important differences. An example of such an occurrence was
the practice, especially in the 1960's and 1970's, in some feminist writing to
refer to "women's oppression" and explore the cOmmon experiences of
women without attending to the experiential and objective impact of race and

class differences.

While it is evident that many women suffer from sexist tyranny,
there is little indication that this forges "a common bond among
all women." There is much evidence substantiating the reality
that race and class identity creates differences in quality of life,
social status, and lifestyle that take precedence over the common
experience women share - differences which are rarely
transcended.122

The construction of the object 'women' has been severely criticized by
some women of color as classist and racist because "the women's movement"
in the 60's and 70's was really the expression of middle and upper-middle

class white women who took it upon themselves to generalize from their

 

122hooks, bell, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End
Press, 1984), p. 4.

175

experiences to the experience of women who were not included nor
consulted. Such generalizing participates in the strategy of falsely
universalizing your own case. This strategy has the double effect of bolstering
your case by cloaking it in the greater legitimacy that broadening one's base
achieves and silencing and excluding those standpoints that one pretends to
include, but may in fact be divergent and even counter to the articulated

aims.

It was a mark of race and class privilege, as well as the expression
of freedom from the many constraints sexism places on working
class women, that middle class white women were able to make
their interests the primary focus of feminist movement and
employ a rhetoric of commonality that made their condition
synonymous with "oppression." Who was there to demand a
change in vocabulary? What other group of women in the
United States had the same access to universities, publishing
houses, mass media, money?123

Notice that the middle class white women of the 60's and 70's who had
dominated feminist discourse had access to the means of defining their
situation as they chose. As hooks points out, that access was itself a mark of
privilege, not oppression in comparison to the inability of poor women and
women of color to gain access to the means of defining their situation as they
saw it and pursuing their own goals. Two things are important to notice
here. First is that the appeal to a pseudo-commonality, e.g. being a woman,
participated in a practice which was exclusionary because it masked a
difference in aims which could not be tolerated. All women may well have
common experiences or share an objective situation which might be the basis
of a true community, but as long as significant differences are covered over,

the truth of this possible commonality cannot be realized. One of the

 

123Ihid., p. 6.

176

differences I am referring to here is that while middle class white women
were campaigning for wage work, poor women and women of color were
eager to escape from wage work. This difference can be articulated in terms of
class and the access to different kinds of wage work which class differences
entail. Middle class white women wanted wage work because the kind of
work they could get was interesting and well-remunerated. Poor women had
access only to work which was demeaning, exhausting and poorly-
remunerated. So an immediate point of disagreement concerned the issue of
wage work itself. Since the issues of class and race were suppressed by an
over-zealous appeal to gender only, it was impossible to thematize this
difference and devise a common strategy to confront it. Furthermore, it was
not in the interest of the "feminists" to confront this issue because in fact
their aims were aims which reflected their class. Of course, I am not claiming
that individual women had anything but the best intentions, and I am aware
of my own generalizations in telling this story. Nevertheless, an important
lesson can be gleaned from this tale and is currently being incorporated into
feminist movement: beware of claims of commonality, they often mask class
and race interest. Elaboration of the lesson: well-intentioned efforts to
construct or reconstruct communities or traditions need to be sensitive to
participating in exclusionary practices.

The norm of the ideal speech situation and the notion of the colonization
of the lifeworld can be useful as tools of critique in cases like that described
above. The exclusion of poor women and women of color in the "women's
movement" can be criticized in terms of the ideal speech situation and the
notion of the colonization of the lifeworld can be usefully employed here as

well. hooks obviously did not require these tools to perform her critique, but

if‘

ne

tl
tl

177

if we are to avoid rediscovering the wheel in each situation critical tools are

necessary.

Inadequacy of Counterinstitutions

The ideal speech situation requires that all persons who might be affected
by some matter be able to participate in discourse concerning it. The notion of
the counterinstitution and the example of feminist movement demonstrate
that the ability to participate in normative discourse requires both not being
excluded from discourse and being capable of effective discourse. From my
discussion of Kant and my discussion of counterinstitutions, it is clear that
the capacity to engage in effective discourse is not something that an
individual simply possesses by nature. Rather, this capacity entails active
membership in a group or groups which provides the opportunity for practice
in argumentation as well as development of norms which are intimately
related to the member’ s self-identity. A conception of autonomy which is
quite different from Kant’ s individualist conception is suggested by these
considerations. Fraser suggests a meaning for autonomy which resounds

these considerations.

. . . to be autonomous here would mean to be a member of a
group or groups which have achieved a means of interpretation
and communication sufficient to enable one to participate on a
par with members of other groups in moral and political
deliberation; that is, to speak and be heard, to tell one's own life-
story, to press one's claims and point of view in one's own
voice.124

Habermas’s discourse ethics or communicative ethics emphasizes the

importance of language. We see this emphasis in MacIntyre as well. The

 

124Fraser, Nancy, "Toward a Discourse Ethic of Solidarity," Praxis
International, 5:4 January 1986, p. 428.

178

twist this emphasis on language which Fraser takes from Habermas, and
which is apparent in the example above, is that access to the opportunity to
engage in actual normative discourse in a setting approximating the ideal
speech situation is only part of what is required for effective discursive
argumentation. Access to the means of self and group interpretation and
presentation is just as important. In the example above, we saw that poor
women and women of color were effectively excluded from access to the
means of controlling their own cultural identity. Their interests were falsely
voiced by others for their own class interests. Here two requirements for the
embodiment of the ideal speech situation become clear. First, individuals
and groups must be able to control their own self and group identities.
Second, an institutional setting must be established which will ensure
individuals and groups access to normative discourse with others.

The role of counterinstitutions in embodying the ideal speech situation
has two limitations. First, counterinstitutions are not institutions.
Counterinstitutions lack institutional embodiment to ensure their survival.
There are some institutions which represent counterinstitutions, e.g. food co-
ops, women’s bookstores, ecological organizations. In so far as these
organizations exist, they provide a way for counterinstitutions to endure and
enable some members to resist the colonization of the lifeworld in a fuller
way than if they did not exist. However, these institutions are very minimal.

The second problem that counterinstitutions are subject to is that they
cannot provide for the economic basis which is necessary for achievement of
access to the means of developing and communicating individual and group
identity and the promotion of the point of view of all individuals and groups.

hooks mentioned that poor women and many women of color were

179

prevented from impacting feminist discourse because they did not have the
economic means necessary to effect this impact. Access to ”universities,
publishing houses, mass media, money” are the material means necessary in
Western modernity to make one’s interests heard and to control the
presentation of one’s identity. In so far as counterinstitutions do not have
adequate economic means, they will fail to be anything but isolated and
ineffective pockets of resistance. Notice, too, that the ideal speech situation
requires that all persons be able and allowed to participate in effective
discourse. This means that the success of some counterinstitutions in
presenting their interests and controlling their presentation is not adequate.
Here we find that the ideal speech situation has material implications. All
persons and groups must have the economic means to develop the capacity
for effective normative discourse and the economic means to actually
participate in effective normative discourse.

Embodiment of the ideal speech situation poses a challenge to capitalism
in so far as it requires a far greater equality of economic means than is likely
to occur within capitalist economy. Furthermore, hooks points out that the
class interests of middle and upper-middle class white women presented
obstacles for the examination of some of the roots of gender and race
oppression. She explicitly argues that issues of gender, race and class are
interconnected and that successful analysis of gender or race oppression must
include economic analysis. Many feminists now argue that capitalism is
antithetical to feminist aims in so far as capitalism entails inequality and
impedes the recognition and pursuit of common aims.125 Capitalism is also

shown as problematic in the colonization thesis. However, envisioning and

 

125See, for example, Jaggar, Alison, Feminist Politics and Human Nature
(Totowa, N. J. : Rowman and Allanheld; Brighton, UK: Harvester Press, 1983).

180

working out the details of a viable alternative to capitalism economy is
difficult. It may be useful here to note some points at which Habermas and
Marx disagree.

Marx and Habermas
Habermas does not follow Marx in arguing that markets must be
eliminated. Indeed, Habermas finds that the subsystems of market economy
and political administration are very successful in providing for material

reproduction and to some extent promoting emancipatory programs.

Marx is convinced a priori that in capital he has before him
nothing more than the mystified form of a class relation. This
interpretation excludes from the start the question of whether
the systemic interconnection of the capitalist economy and the
modern state administration do not also represent a higher and
evolutionarily advantageous level of integration by comparison
to traditional societies. Marx conceives of capitalist society so
strongly as a totality that he fails to recognize the intrinsic
evolutionary value that media-steered subsystems possess. He
does not see that the differentiation of the state apparatus and
the economy also represents a higher level of system
differentiation, which simultaneously opens up new steering
possibilities and forces a reorganization of the old, feudal class
relationships. The significance of this level of integration goes
beyond the institutionalization of a new class relationship.126

Habermas is pointing out here the historic role the capitalist state has
played. In claiming that capitalism and state bureaucracy open up "new
steering possibilities" he is pointing to the great efficiency of these systems in
meeting needs. These claims lead Habermas to not respond to the
colonization of the lifeworld by arguing for the elimination of market
economy. It is very important to note that capitalism economy and the

existence of markets are two different things. Habermas claims that "Between

 

126Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two. p. 339.

181

capitalism and democracy there is an indissoluble tension; in them two
opposed principles of societal integration compete for primacy."127 Capitalist
economy tends to organize human relations in terms of money and power
instead of traditionally or communicatively legitimized norms. Thus, the

' meeting of needs through wage labor in the capitalist labor market is
problematic. This system reifies human relations and removes them from
the realm of communicative discourse. A socialist economy might well have
the benefits of capitalist market economy without producing these results, as
well as avoiding the accompanying economic inequalities which I have noted
as impeding equal participation in democratic decisionmaking. Thus, the
project of embodying the ideal speech situation may well be dependent on

working out a socialist market economy.128

The Role of a Political Institution

The ideal speech situation is not in itself a community. I have argued for
the continuing need for communities or social groups as places for the
development of the identities and capacities of individuals as well as
particular norms. The ideal speech situation functions as the place for the
mediation of these particular communities and norms. Here Hegel’s insight
concerning the role of the state may be useful. Hegel introduces the state as
necessary in order to overcome and mediate the particularity of civil society.
While Hegel’s proposal failed because of his inattention to the material basis
of politics, his notion of the role of the state is useful. Certainly, the ideal

speech situation requires institutionalization so that it will endure. An

 

1271bid., p. 345.

1238ee David Miller’s effort toward this goal in Miller, Daivd, Market, State and
Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

182

obvious way in which to institutionalize the ideal speech situation is through
a modification of current democratic practices institutionalized through state
mechanisms. However, it is important to note immediately, that the
concerns about colonization of the lifeworld and the effects of economic
inequality will require a very great modification of democracy as conceived of
in the United States. Issues which have been insulated from democratic
decisionmaking will have to lose their insulation. Matters that have
previously been considered the domain of private economic agents will be
subjected to collective consideration because of their impact on economic
equality and the commodification of normative issues.

While outlining a specific political scheme which will accommodate the
requirements of the ideal speech situation is beyond the scope of this
dissertation and the current imagination of the author, the outlines are clear.
A reformed democratic process which is adequate to the specifications of the
ideal speech situation must be include the following: (1) it must not devolve
into mere interest-group posturing, (2) it must include previously excluded
economic issues and (3) it must have mechanisms for including previously
invisible or silenced groups.129 My proposal for the institutionalization of the
ideal speech situation is for the development of reformed democratic

mechanisms which meet the three requirements outlined above.

Third Objection: Disappearance of Normative Content
The third objection to the ideal speech situation stated that the realization
of the ideal speech situation would entail the destruction of all particular

communities and thus eliminate the place of origin of norms. I believe that

 

129See Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difl‘erence, pp. 156 - 191, '
for interesting suggestions for a reformed democracy.

183

answers to the first and second objections already contain an answer to this
objection. Let me restatement those answers here. First, the ideal speech
situation, since it is contentless, requires that content be brought to it from
outside. Particular communities or social groups must continue in order for
content to be brought to the ideal speech situation. Second, effective
discourse in the ideal speech situation requires the development of the
capacity for normative argument on the part of participants and it is clear that
this capacity is developed in particular communities. This requirement
entails that individuals and members have the communicative and
economic means to engage in community formation. Thus, embodiment of
the ideal speech situation, far from eliminating particular communities,
requires the promotion of particular communities and social groups which
would function as the locus of norms. Third, in capitalist economy,
economic issues have posed obstacles to community-building.
Institutionalization of the ideal speech situation requires that such economic
issues be subjected to collective argumentation and will-formation, thus
eliminating this obstacle to community maintenance and development. Let
me also point out clearly that the thesis of colonization suggests that
communities are destroyed by the encroachment of economic and
administrative subsystems which employ instrumental rationality. The
realization of the ideal speech situation would constitute resistance to this
colonization and afford opportunities for communicative rationality. Thus,
the realization of the ideal speech situation is not at all opposed to
communities.

In conclusion, I have presented and responded to three important

problems for the ideal speech situation. I have argued that the ideal speech

184

situation does not fail because it constitutes an empty formalism. In making
this argument I have clearly distinguished Kant’ s conception of practical
rationality from that of Habermas. I have discussed ways in which the ideal
speech situation might be realized, both in counterinstitutions and through
political mechanisms. Finally, I have argued that the ideal speech situation
will not entail the end of community, but instead, that its realization will

bring about the flowering of particular communities.

Conclusion
I would like to conclude by reviewing and commenting on the previous
chapters in a way that clarifies the themes, arguments and discussions which

move through them.

Review of Chapters
Chapter One - Introduction

The introduction performed three tasks: (1) it stated the motivating
problem which the dissertation addressed, (2) it stated the aim of the
dissertation, and (3) it described the procedure by which the dissertation
addressed the problem and achieved its aim.

The motivating problem of the dissertation has been modern ethical
skepticism. I explained the problem of ethical skepticism as it has been
articulated by MacIntyre. MacIntyre understands the problem in terms of the
interminability of ethical discourse. Ethical argumentation is interminable
because of the absence of consensus concerning norms. Norms function as
the premises in ethical arguments. Where consensus on norms is absent,
argument cannot proceed to a reasoned conclusion. Consensus concerning
norms is based on the sharing of coherent ethical traditions and ways of life.
This analysis suggests that the problem of ethical skepticism will not be
resolved by determining and employing the correct abstract principles.
Instead, it suggests that the problem rests in the absence of a single, shared,
coherent ethical tradition which is embodied in institutions and ways of life.
The aim of the dissertation was taken from this presentation of the problem
of ethical skepticism. The stated aim was to determine, at least in a general

way, what kind of community, institutions or institutional arrangements

185

186

within a community might provide the conditions for coherent modern
ethical agency. I proposed-addressing this aim through two levels of analysis:
the relationship between self and community, and the relationship between
practical rationality and historical conditions.

Modernity itself as a possible historical condition for ethical agency is what
has been at stake. I accepted MacIntyre's dual insight that particular norms
inform ethical agency, and that these norms are embodied in traditions and
ways of life. MacIntyre concludes from these insights that traditions and ways
of life become incoherent, then the individuals who are shaped by them
become incoherent as well. The universe of discourse of ethical reflection
which is given to modems is like a box of puzzle pieces in which pieces from
many different puzzles are placed. The instructions are to put the puzzle
together, or to make correct ethical decisions. In both cases, the aim is
precluded by the means provided.

While I accepted MacIntyre's initial insights, his pessimism concerning
modernity is premised on his conception of the self, his conception of
practical rationality and his conception of the relationship between practical
rationality and historical conditions. I accepted MacIntyre as posing a serious
challenge to modernity as a set of historical conditions capable of supporting
coherent ethical agency. Since MacIntyre's indictment of modernity depends
on a particular conception of practical rationality and its relationship to
historical conditions, I have evaluated these conceptions to determine
whether or not alternative conceptions might be adequate. It is my
conclusion that MacIntyre's initial insights are correct, but I have presented
and argued for a conception of practical rationality which is different from

that upon which MacIntyre bases his indictment of modernity. That

187

alternative conception of practical rationality is appropriate for modernity
and suggestive of ways of institutionalizing it. Thus, it allows for the
possibility for coherent ethical agency in modernity.

The introduction proposed the way in which the dissertation would
proceed. The plan began in the second chapter with a consideration of the
relationship between self and community which defended and illustrated my
historical approach. After this, the chapters focused on the contributions of
four philosophers to the dissertation problematic. Kant, MacIntyre, Hegel and

Habermas were the four philosophers whose work was explored and applied.

Chapter Two - Agency and Community

In Chapter Two I defended my choice of approach and illustrated its
power. I defended the usefulness of focusing on the relationship between self
and community by demonstrating that different ethical theories assume
different conceptions of the self and its relationship to its community.
Focusing on this relationship revealed assumptions made in ethical theories
and demonstrated how important this relationship is for a conception of
ethics. While virtue ethics emphasizes that values inhere in small, particular
communities, utilitarianism and deontology depend on universal
characteristics of human beings as the basis of values. The disagreement is
over whether practical agency is rooted in our particular community or in
our human nature. Even in the cases of utilitarianism and deontology,
which seem not to root practical agency in communities, I find a certain
necessary reference to community, albeit a very different conception of
community than that which is at home in virtue ethics. For utilitarianism,

the relevant community is the ever-changing community of those

188

individuals who may be affected by an agent's actions. We might consider
the conception of community employed to be akin to the sense of community
invoked in virtue ethics because the effects our actions have on that
community produce our concrete duties and establish a particular action as
the moral action.

In Kant's deontology, our membership in the community of ends is
important in explaining our nature as ethical agents. The kingdom of ends is
a connected system of rational agents who are each the makers of universal
laws. In their making of universal laws they are enjoined to treat themselves
and each other as ends. The making of universal law necessarily refers to this
"community" of rational law-makers.

As a result of the analysis of the relationship between self and community
in three kinds of ethical theories, I suggested that every system of ethics
employs some notion of community. Different conceptions of community
are related to different conceptions of the ethical subject. This analysis sets up
two poles between which the argument concerning ethical agency in
modernity proceeds: the ethical subject as particular and embodied, as
opposed to the ethical subject as universal and abstract.

My approach to understanding ethical agency has been similar to that
which I presented in Chapter Two, as virtue ethics. This approach suggests
that one understands the ethical agent as such by looking at the community
and groups of which that individual is a member, as well as by locating the
individual in his or her institutional setting. When I applied this approach
to a contemporary person, the problem of modern agency revealed itself. I
found that modern agents are not members of single coherent communities,

but members of multiple groups and institutions each with their own duties,

 

189

obligations, rights and norms which conflict with the others. Here I claimed
that we can see the concrete roots of modern ethical skepticism. An
individual defines him or herself largely in terms of group memberships and
institutional relationships. The conflicting norms of the individual's groups
and institutional attachments do not constitute a coherent whole but a set of
objective and internalized contradictions. These conflicts and contradictions
are the conditions for an irrational modern agency. Employing the historical
approach, I concluded that the modern ethical agent is incoherent and that
this incoherence stems from the conflicting institutions of modernity.

Finally, I compared the historical approach with the transcendental
approach to ethics in light of three problems and suggested how the historical
approach might avoid these problems. First, I noted that the transcendental
approach purports to provide a conception of ethical decisionmaking which
does not rely on practical conditions. The pure rational agent as practical
reasoner can determine the correct ethical judgment and action despite the
social and historical situation. The historical analysis presents coherent
ethical agency as dependent on historical conditions. This is a "problem" for
this kind of analysis only is so far as it allows for the possibility of the
eclipsing of ethical agency from time to time. If the transcendental approach
is correct, then coherent ethical agency suffers from no such dependency and
coherent ethical reflection is always possible.

I argued that the historical analysis is also problematic in so far as it is
unclear how immanent critique of a culture or tradition might proceed, and
in so far as it seems to offer no way to adjudicate among conflicting traditions
or cultures. This suggests that the historical analysis harbors a deep

irrationality. Ultimately, one cannot defend one's values or ethical

190

judgments by argument. Value change can occur only through some kind of
conversion experience which includes an arational switch to another way of
life. However, I suggested that the historical analysis can tolerate an historical
analysis of how values came to be embraced in a culture, and thus provide an
immanent critique in terms of this kind of historical analysis. Thus, these
problems do not plague all possible kinds of historical analyses of values, but
only certain versions of this kind of analysis. This proposal set the stage in
later chapters for an analysis of the importance of politics in developing the

conditions for coherent ethical agency in modernity.

Chapter Three - The Autonomous Self

I discussed Kant's conception of ethics and the ethical subject for three
primary reasons: (1) to continue to develop a defense of the historical
approach to ethics; (2) to further analyze the relationship between self and
community; and (3) to begin to develop an analysis of practical rationality
and its relationship to historical conditions.

Kant's influence on contemporary ethical argumentation cannot be
overstated. In this chapter I discussed the distinctively modern conception of
the ethical agent and its autonomy as developed by Kant. This conception of
the ethical agent divorces the conditions for ethical agency from the historical
and social setting of the individual. Kantian ethics posits a timeless,
universal subject prior to any of his or her ends or purposes. I argued against
this conception of the ethical subject by arguing that ethical problems, as
ethical problems, are not states of affairs which exist independently. Instead,
ethical problems are constructed by particular individuals out of states of

affairs in light of those individuals self-conceptions, desires and aims as

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embodied, historically located individuals. Thus, even the existence of
ethical problems is premised upon the particularity of a situated individual or
set of individuals. The construction of a state of affairs as an ethical problem
locates an agent within a particular historical setting. Pure rational agents do
not have ethical problems. Persons who are located at particular moments in
particular places with particular histories have ethical problems. The
articulation of a ethical problem assumes a particular historical location.
Thus, universalizability requires us to treat the ethical problem as something
quite different from what it is or could be. The problem of the emptiness of
the content of the categorical imperative derives from this. The first
formulation of the categorical imperative instructs us only to be consistent,
but one may be consistent in a number of ways. The second formulation
helps us in choosing some definite action, but at the expense of relocating us
in a particular social and historical location. To respect another as an end
requires actually doing things which acknowledge that that other has certain
aims and not others. To respect that person as having those particular aims is
to treat that person as a concrete subject, not an ahistorical subject. Since the
relationship of the agent to the other and the institutions which inform their
social reality are both partial determinants of the meaning of the action, the
agent must act from a particular location as a historical subject, not from a
timeless standpoint as a noumenal subject. The crucial point is that even the
possibility of constructing some situation as an ethically problematic situation
assumes historically localized subjects.

I also criticized Kant on the issue of moral motivation. I argued that
Kant's conception of moral motivation cannot provide content for practical

action, and thus, Kant's view of moral agency leaves no basis for agency. I

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argued that Kant's conception of moral agency fails because of the gap
between the practical agent and the noumenal self, and that this view of
agency undermines ways of conceiving of the relation between self and
community which might provide an alternative framework for ethical
discourse and justification. Conceiving of moral problems in terms of pure
moral agency posits ethical problems as matters of the application of the
correct rational decision procedure by an individual. Revealing the
relationship between self and community as the basis of moral agency
suggests that moral problems implicate the community and thus are not the
sole possession of a monological subject. This shift suggests a parallel shift in
the relationship between practical rationality and historical conditions.
Kant's conception of practical rationality is of a rationality which is
independent of historical conditions. He assume that rationality is the same
for all agents. He has a static conception of the rationality of the agent. Hegel

and Habermas challenge this static conception.

Chapter Four - The Rejection of Modernity

In Chapter Two I argued that the conflicting norms in modern institutions
are problematic for coherent ethical agency. In Chapter Four I provide
MacIntyre's version of this argument. MacIntyre conceives of ethical agency
in terms of the development of the virtues. A community is adequate as the
condition for ethical agency in so far as it provides the condition for the
development of the virtues. The development of the virtues requires the
pursuit of practices which aim at internal goods, the experience of life as a
unity, and a community which shares a moral tradition. The complexity of

modern life prevents all of these conditions from prevailing. Thus,

 

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MacIntyre presents modernity as incapable of supporting communities which
might be the condition of coherent ethical agency.

The primary strength of MacIntyre's analysis is that he clarifies some of
the problems of modernity. The primary weakness of MacIntyre's analysis is
that he fails to successfully to defend his claim that ethical agency is precluded
in the modern world. Quite simply, MacIntyre fails to make the case for this
claim. MacIntyre's view of practical rationality is unnecessarily limited. Here
I connect the discussion back to my claim of the importance of the dual
relationships of self and community, and practical rationality and historical
conditions. MacIntyre treats moral concepts as functional terms which may
be used in practical syllogisms to produce deductive arguments. MacIntyre is
clear that only a particular kind of pre-modern community could be
supportive of the kind of practical rationality which could provide objective
ethical claims and defensible ethical arguments. Such a community must be
one in which moral terms have an objective meaning. But what is the price
of securing that objectivity? Roles must be defined in ways that are
consensually fixed and possess a quality of givenness; they cannot be open to
significant reflection upon or discussion of by the members of the
community. Individuals must identify very strongly with those roles, so that
their actions flow from their conceptions of themselves in terms of those
roles like a conclusion from a deductive argument. This view rules out a
place for genuine ethical deliberation. MacIntyre's notion of practical
rationality as deductive and mechanical cannot allow for ethical deliberation.
Here is where MacIntyre fails to make his case. MacIntyre does not
demonstrate that his is the only viable conception of practical rationality. If a

conception of practical rationality can be defended which is different from

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that suggested by MacIntyre, and a kind of community supportive of it can be
conceived of and proposed as a real possibility, then it will be clear that
modernity need not preclude ethical agency. In the following chapters I made
the case for such a conception of practical rationality and the possibility of

such a community.

Chapter Five - The Possibility of Ethical Agency in Modernity

Hegel argues that by thinking philosophically we can overcome in
thought the conflicts and contradictions of modernity. Hegel and MacIntyre
agree that the practical consciousness of individuals is shaped by the
institutions which organize social relations. Both identify capitalism as an
important institution which shapes the individuals who live within it.
However, Hegel sees the changes which participation in capitalism brings as
an advance which MacIntyre seems to see it as the beginning of the end for
ethical agency. For Hegel, capitalism makes every person free, equal and
independent. This change in objective relations gives rise to a corresponding
change in consciousness. While capitalism creates divisions within civil
society, it also creates new and objective interdependence. Thinking
philosophically, i.e. in terms of the whole, Hegel maintains that we can grasp
that the diremptions which are experienced at the level of the individual are
overcome. Thus, the conflicts and contradictions of modernity are only
apparent. There is a coherent whole, according to Hegel, which is the basis for
coherent practical rationality. The institutions of the state provide an
opportunity for individuals to overcome the particularity of their standpoints
and think in terms of the whole. Thus, Hegel introduces political

participation as crucial in overcoming the divisions of modernity. Political

 

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participation requires that the individual take the standpoint of the whole.
This standpoint enables a practical rationality which is not subject to the
conflicting viewpoints of the level of individuality. Thus, it provides the
basis for objective practical rationality. MacIntyre's problem was that there
seemed to be no defensible way in modernity to choose among conflicting
solutions to ethical questions. Here Hegel offers a definitive standpoint from
which rational decisions can be made: the standpoint of the whole.

While I argued that Hegel's state fails to to provide a standpoint from
which conflicting norms can be mediated, I also claimed that Hegel usefully
brings politics and political institutions into the discussion. Furthermore,
Hegel argues that modern individuals have capacities for thought which pre-
modern individuals did not have. These capacities result from the new
objective relations accompanying new institutions. Here we see the hope for
employing those new capacities in the service of a new kind of practical
rationality and in the possibility of self-consciously bringing into being

institutions which accomplish what Hegel's state failed to accomplish.

Chapter Six - Communicative Rationality and Ethical Agency

Habermas provides a way of conceiving of the threat which modernity
poses to coherent ethical agency by reconstructing modernity in terms of
rationalization processes. As the lifeworld becomes progressively
rationalized, the prereflective validity of practical or normative claims is
disrupted. This produces interminable moral argumentation and moral
skepticism. Habermas's claim is that once problematization has occurred, the 7
gap produced can only be repaired through rational argumentation. Practical

or normative claims admit of truth in the same way that claims about the

 

196

objective world admit of truth. Both can admit of truth because they can be
subjected to rational argumentation. The procedure of rational
argumentation can confer the value of truth upon normative claims as well
as scientific claims. Here Habermas provides an alternative to MacIntyre's
conception of practical rationality. Compelling values and norms, which can
function as premises in moral argumentation, can be produced through open
argumentation. Rational argumentation can produce consensus and thus a
new background of assumptions for moral argumentation. However, as the
rationalization processes which are characteristic of modernity occurred, two
kinds of rationality came into use: instrumental rationality and
communicative rationality. It is Habermas's claim that the employment of
instrumental rationality in the practical domain has disabled the process of
reworking the assumptions on which ethical agency is based. Instrumental
rationality can be used to direct action, but it cannot take over the task of
providing justification for human interaction which might provide the basis
for consensus about norms. Instrumental rationality cannot provide a new
consensus about norms and values. The rules of argumentation can be
discerned in communicative rationality, not strategic or instrumental
rationality. It is the very procedure of obtaining agreement which confers
validity upon some claim. Thus, communicative rationality is privileged.
Democracy promises to guide the development of institutions which can
function to produce consensus. However, in most western democracies, the
liberal state functions both to support private gain through capitalism and the
generalizable interests of all citizens. These are contradictory aims and derail

the potential of the democratic state. In the capitalist, democratic state the

 

197

conflict between instrumental and communicative rationality is
institutionalized.

The condition for coherent ethical agency in modernity is an institutional
arrangement which will facilitate the reworking of the lifeworld. Such
reworking can only be brought about in modernity through the process of
argumentative discourse. The realization of the setting within which such
discourse can occur will itself require institutional change. Coherent ethical
agency in modernity requires the practical implementation of a setting for
discourse which will enable, or at least not impede, the participation of all
concerned. Such a setting and practice will confer legitimacy on the results of
discourse and provide a consensus on which further moral argumentation

can be based.

Chapter Seven - Problems and Questions

In Chapter Seven I articulated and answered three problems which are
raised by Habermas's conception of the ideal speech situation. These
problems were: (1) the charge that the ideal speech situation constitutes an
empty formalism, (2) the realization of the ideal speech situation, and (3) the
charge that realization of the ideal speech situation would lead to the end of
community. In responding to these charges I reinterated my commitment to
an historical analysis of norms in a way that emphasized the relationship
between self and community. I argued that Habermas is different from Kant
in claiming that norms are embodied in communities and that individuals
come to have norms, and thus become capable of ethical agency, only through
their participation in communities. This view of the relationship between

norms, the self and community suggests that the problem of ethical

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skepticism can only be addressed by directly addressing those relationships.
Habermas's notion of the ideal speech situation offer a solution to this
problem. More precisely, the institutionalization of the ideal speech situation
can provide a solution to this problem. Institutionalization of the ideal
speech situation will not entail the development of a new, worldwide
substantive ethical community. Instead, realization of the ideal speech
situation will entail a society in which multiple substantive ethical
communities flourish, and a political system functions which allows conflicts
among communities to be resolved in a way that can be accepted as legitimate
by all. Realization of the ideal speech situation is itself conditioned upon the
real possibility that all persons and all groups can participate effectively and
equality in discourse. This condition would require greater economic equality
and a wider scope for democracy than is currently practiced.

The social movements which Habermas calls 'counterinstitutions'
represent spontaneous efforts to bring about the realization of the conditions
for the ideal speech situation. They also constitute pockets of practice which
approximate the ideal speech situation in miniature and provide individuals
with the opportunity to develop the capacities, norms and communities
which participation in the ideal speech community would require. The
existence and persistence of these social movements suggests that the
realization of the ideal speech situation is not a utopian dream, but a real
possibility. I began this work by pointing out that the condition for coherent
ethical agency in modernity is not the working out of the correct ethical
theory, but a matter of producing of the historical conditions for coherent

ethical agency. I have outlined what those historical conditions might be.

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The full test of my theorizing will only be completed by practical

interventions in the world.

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