Module 7 Discourse Ethics

Learning Outcomes

1.      Articulate why discourse ethics was a necessary development;

2.      Explain the principles of (U) and (D) as the foundations of discourse ethics; and

3.      Discuss the principles of fair and just discourse and how these principles lead to a shared we-perspective.

Introduction

Most people assume that they know what is right and wrong. People can easily judge right and wrong based on their
common sense. No one also has think too deeply about their judgment about stealing, killing, and the beating of women
and children. People have an instinctive and most of the time, unshakeable moral judgment about these things.

            For instance, anyone would have an opinion about wife beating. Some men and women would immediately agree
that particular women deserve the beating they get because they act against some norms such as talking flirtatiously to
another man or not preparing dinner on time. However, other people say that wife beating or any form of beating is
unacceptable and inexcusable. Some people understand wife beating as a normal course of behavior that is a private
matter between husband and wife. Other people understand this as a crime that the state must intervene in. These
people hold their position to be a matter of common sense that does not need to be reflected on or thought too much
about.

            However, not everyone looks at things in the same way. One has a way of understanding reality depending on
one’s social status, ethnicity, generation, historical situation, and gender.  Thus, there are many ways of understanding
and articulating the good. This does not mean however that there is no faithful or unfaithful interpretation of the good.
Neither is the good necessarily relative, depending on one’s perspective and needs. But people’s perspectives on the
good are particular. And human beings feel that some conceptions of the good actually violate the integrity of human
existence. But how can we tell whose sense of the good and whose sense of the just is closer to what is creatively
human?

            This is an important question for ethical thinking because if we need to live together, we have to have a shared
conception of the good. In premodern times, people believed that the gods or the cosmos imposed a natural law and
the good was based on the transcendent order. It did not matter what people believed; the universe had its own order
and the good was based on that order. Free human beings, one way or the other, only had to understand how human
actions were defined by that order and all would be well.

            However, when the Western world began to emphasize the autonomy of the human being from the will and
intelligence of a transcendent God, people lost the basis of the good that everyone could agree with. The primary task of
Western men was to find the basis of the conception of the good that did not rely on a transcendent order. They
realized that the human person was an autonomous being who had reason and using this reason could legislate the
good for himself. Because human reason was universal for all persons, then they could devise rules for reason that
would ensure that reasonable persons could arrive at an understanding of the good that was acceptable to all men.
Given the possible conflicts between possibly legitimate conceptions of the good, how do we arrive at a shared
conception of the good in a multicultural society?

            This is the reason why discourse theory emerged. Discourse theory is a theory that shows rational people how to
arrive at a shared conception of the good using reason alone. In this case though, reason meant the various forms of
reason of people from different cultures and systems of values. Discourse theory sought to articulate at a consensual
understanding of the good so that people in a shared world could live with each other.
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Competing Conceptions of the Good

As discussed, the foundational idea that brought about the emergence of discourse ethics is the idea that there are
competing conceptions of the good in modernized societies. This means that societies today are no longer homogenous
and people have different forms of reason, including moral reasoning. In large societies where the multiplicity of people
needs to be accommodated, conflict and injustice cannot be avoided.

            Injustice is a particular danger in multicultural societies. Any society needs a dominant system to guide free and
autonomous people regarding what is acceptable behavior. The dominant system also determines what is acceptable
and unacceptable behavior, what can be expected and what duties persons have to each other and to society. It is easy
to see how people’s lives can be determined by the dominant ethical thinking about the good. It frees people to act but
it also limits people from realizing themselves if their conception of the good is seen as contrary to the dominant
system. Many rules that govern people make sense while the conditions that make them useful exist. But if conditions
change, then sometimes these rules become oppressive.

            For instance, because the people who belong to traditional cultures do not understand the systems of ownership
imposed by the Westernized states of colonized parts of the world, they are considered squatters of the lands they dwell
in. Certain religious practices are frowned upon or even persecuted because they violate community sensibilities like the
sacrifice of certain animals considered by Westernized people as pets. Here we see how important it is for nations and
states have a shared conception of the good where there are competing conceptions of the good.

            Asian and African countries have strong traditional communities and people are poor and marginalized by their
own governments because these institutions were imposed by Western colonizers. In many of these countries, civil wars
and terrorism, as well as corruption and failed governance persist because the majority of their populations still refuse
to accept the dominant system as defining the good for them. It is thus important to find ways of building communities
with a shared conception of the good without violence. And even if the issue of imposed dominant systems does not
exist, the fact that the conditions for human dwelling generally evolve demands that come to a shared conception of the
good and does not alienate any members of our society.

            Discourse theory was conceived to provide a way of creating a system of shared conceptions of the good in
societies where there are competing conceptions of the good. It is helpful because it can provide human beings with a
basis for accepting laws and ethical systems as valid for autonomous, rational beings.

“Legislating” for Autonomous, Rational Beings

The basic idea of discourse theory is that human beings are rational and autonomous and as such need to legislate for
themselves their rules of behavior. This means that they are free beings who usually act when these actions make sense
to them. One reason is practicality. One should do something because the outcome is beneficial to him/her. It makes
sense to work hard for psychic or economic rewards that working hard brings. One also acts because he/she is fearful or
desires to avoid negative consequences. It makes sense to follow the law, even the ones that are not so clear, because
one could be punished. People also act based on authority. They do things because the persons they respect or
recognize as the bearers of the community say so. For instance, they follow teachers, managers and government officials
because these people embody the will of the community.

            However, human beings are truly most free when they act because they are convinced that an action is good and
that it ought to be done. This is when it can be said that people act according to their free will. People have a need to
realize their potential as free beings, but they are not just free beings; but beings who seek to realize their fullest
potential. This fullest potential can be called the good. They need a guide to understand what they ought to do and how
to make norms that guide them in new and specific activities.
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            If people do not have a transcendent god to tell them what to do and if they do not have a universal reason to
determine what to do, then there must be a way to formulate norms of behavior that one can expect from rational and
autonomous beings. These are not norms of behavior for the most practical ways of going about things neither are these
norms of behavior that reflect our preferences. Rather, these are norms of behavior that people expect human beings to
follow if they are rational, free, and responsible.

            Habermas is one of the philosophers who has helped sort out the principles for formulating conceptions of the
good in solidarity with others. The need for the communal process is twofold. Firstly, human beings act in a community.
Norms of human behavior have to be acceptable to all the community for people to be able to act together and have an
ordered society. But more importantly, when they articulate a conception of the good, the persons in dialogue are
seeking the authenticity of what it means to be a human being. One person alone, with the perspective of his/her
particular culture and rationality, cannot define the good, and cannot exhaust the mystery of human. And so, one needs
the perspective of others to articulate the possibilities of human existence in the world.

            What Habermas seeks to articulate is how human beings can come to a shared understanding of the good to
which the community can subscribe. Being autonomous law-giving individuals, there ought to be a maxim that can guide
their way of articulating reality. Kant formulated this categorical imperative on which to base the legislation of one’s
duty. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”, is
how Kant formulated the foundation for legislating the ought.

            This formulation works as a basis for universalizable norms of human behavior if people can agree that there is
only one shared form of human rationality and we have seen across cultures and generation that there are different
forms of conception of the good. Thus, using the same principle of reasonable persons legislating for themselves,
Habermas comes up with a modification of the categorical imperative. He proposes the following condition for the
acceptability of the norm:

            “(U) All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to
have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known alternative
possibilities for regulation”).

                    In proposing this condition, Habermas is offering a more communal form of norm formulation. Unlike Kant’s
categorical imperative, where it is possible for norms to be formulated by a single person imagining what is justifiable to
all rational people, (U) proposes that a norm can only be valid if all affected can accept the consequences. One person,
no matter how insightful and rational, can imagine the consequences and their acceptability of the observance of norms.
Thus, Habermas comes up with the principle of discourse ethics:

              “(D) Only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their
capacity as participants in a practical discourse.”

Practical discourse means a “cooperative process of argumentation”. If people are able to engage each other in creative
process of deliberation, then they are able to explore together what the basic principles of their moral beliefs are. This
creative process is a process of mutual justification because people have to explain to each other why it is rational or
reasonable to believe what they believe. If the participants are open to each other, it is possible for them to expand or
broaden their conception of the good.  For Habermas, the true value of cooperative discourse is that it can lead to a
shared opinion and will.

Shared Opinion and Will-Formation

 People live in harmony and peace with each other when despite their competing conceptions of the good, they are able
to reconcile their differences and together articulate a conception of the good they can equally accept. Once they have a
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shared conception of the good, then they can act together to realize this good in the world. Their shared conception of
the good becomes their shared norm for acting together.

             Total consensual agreement on the good is almost impossible to realize. After all, there are multiple perspectives
in one society. However, the process itself of cooperative discourse creates a certain process where people gain what
we can call, borrowing from Habermas, we-perspective.  A shared we-perspective is a community’s shared horizon of
understanding that is born from the free and fair engagement of persons who bear different frames for understanding
the good. Because if people are engaged in institutions that allow for the free discourse of rationalities, they will be
engaged in a process of mutual justification.

             Creative dialogue is really founded on mutual justification because people come together to explain to each
other why they believe what they believe. If this process is engaged with openness and goodwill, then it can be a process
of mutual clarification and deepening. It is hoped that in these processes of communicative action, the participants will
become a we. When faced with necessary decisions regarding the good, members of this community are a we who are
invested in the process of mutual understanding and consensus building.

             Consensus building is different from making compromises. Making compromises entails accepting the positions
of others because of practical needs, coercion, acquiescence, or the simple recognition of the power persons have over
one’s self. To come to a compromise with regard to the norms of the good means to surrender one’s own judgment and
autonomy in order to be able to reach an agreement with another. One does not necessarily agree that the compromise
position actually reflects the good but one accepts it for practical purposes, including the manipulation of the person
with whom one is compromising. In compromise, one may think that one is still right but is willing to surrender one’s
insight into the good just to be able to achieve certain goals.

Conclusion

Clearly, Habermas provides an ideal discourse situation for people to build norms of behavior consensually. But whether
this is ideal or possible in our world, Habermas provides us with reasonable norms which can guide humanity’s quest to
arrive at universalizable norms in multiverse of rationalities. His criteria for fair and reasonable discourse can be used in
shaping our systems of governance at every level, as well as in our processes for creating consensus in seeking norms to
define the norms of our shared lives.

Discourse theory has been applied to studies for understanding democratic institutions and their reform, building just
societies and even assessing institutions for peace building. Even those who do not agree that it is important to build
institutions of discourse that are fair and discursive.