Communicative Ethics in Theory and Practice PDF
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COMMUNICATIVE ETHICS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Communicative Ethics in Theory and Practice Niels Thomassen Associate Professor of Philosophy Odense University, Denmark Translated by John Irons Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-22164-6 ISBN 978-1-349-22162-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22162-2 © Niels Thomassen 1985, 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1992 ISBN 978-0-312-06806-6 First published as Samvcer og solidaritet in Copenhagen in 1985 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thomassen, Niels, 1940- [Samvrer og solidaritet. English] Communicative ethics in theory and practice/Niels Thomassen: translated by John Irons. p. cm. Translation of: Samvrer og solidaritet. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-312-06806-6 1. Communication-Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title P94 T4613 1992 170-dc20 91-25257 CIP Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction ix 1 Ethics and Experience 1 The Necessary Ethic I An Ethical Definition 3 The Domain of Ethics 4 Life Experiences. Gadamer's Concept of Experience 6 Discussion of Gadamer's concept of experience 8 Moral Experiences 10 Reason and Forms of Reason, or Some Remarks about Method 12 Ethics as Philosophical Hermeneutics 14 Does Our Situation Call For a New Ethic? 17 The Possible Ethic 18 2 Conflicts 22 Conflicts in 'The Grass is Singing' 24 Black and White 25 Dick and Mary 28 Mary and Moses 34 Inner conflicts 39 Conflicts and Life-Force 43 3 Communication 44 A Matter 44 Situation 49 Subject 53 Suprapersonal subjects 53 Persons 54 Action 64 The structure of an action 68 The meaning of an action 73 Conflicts and Communication 76 Conflicts and Understanding 79 v vi Contents 4 Communicative Power 81 K. E. L0gstrup 81 L0gstrup's Ethic 82 The sovereign manifestations of life 84 The ethical demand 85 Discussion of L0gstrup's Ethic 89 Interpersonal power 89 Suprapersonal power relations 90 The power of the personality 91 The power of history 93 Summary 94 Jiirgen Habermas 96 Discourse Ethics 97 A brief positioning of discourse ethics 102 A Discussion of Habermas' Ethics 104 Ethic and morality, or: are rules more rational than values? Communication ethics and material ethics, or: Why shouldn't you kill people? 108 The ethical intermediate layer 113 Summary 115 The Historical Root of Communicative Ethics 116 Communicative Power 117 5 The Basic Demand 119 The Demand for Solidarity 119 Equality 120 The Right to Life-quality 126 Good and Evil 128 The Third Way. Consequence Ethics, Deontology and Communicative Ethics 131 Ethical Necessity and Ethical Reasons, or Something about the Moral Point of View 141 6 Love and Solidarity 143 Love 144 Solidarity and Love 153 The Value of Love 157 Contents Vll 7 Prerequisites for Solidarity 160 The Prerequisite of Understanding 160 The evil of innocence 164 The Prerequisite of Happiness or the Highest Good 167 Quantitative and qualitative freedom 168 Unhappiness. An example 170 Unhappiness. Kierkegaard's testimony 173 Simple happiness 194 Autonomy and happiness 195 8 Communicative Solidarity 197 A Prelude on MaHer and Ethics 197 Sexuality 199 What is sex? 199 Happy sex 200 Sexual ethic 202 Sexual ideals 207 Violence 209 The ethics of consciousness-raising 209 An interlude on adversaries and 'conversaries' 215 The morality of terrorism 217 Notes 223 Bibliography 224 Index 229 Acknowledgements This book is a translation of a considerably revised edition of Samva!r og solidaritet. Et moralsk udspi/ (Communication and Solidar ity. An Ethical Move), Copenhagen 1985. Its publication has been made possible through funding from Odense University Research Foundation, the Humanities Faculty at Odense University, Ingeni0r N. M. Knudsens Fond and Munke M011e Fonden. I would like to offer them my deepest thanks. Every humanist work is the product of a great number of influences, and sources of inspiration and support which no author can fully account for. Even so, I would like to thank two of my Odense colleagues, Professor David Favrholdt, D. Phil., and Senior Lecturer Klaus-Henrik Jacobsen, MA, as well as Research Scholar Peter Sand0e, D. Phil., from Copenhagen University, all of whom have read the manuscript and contributed a great many constructive suggestions. A speCial word of thanks to Peter Sand0e for having helped me as regards the latest trends in Anglo-American ethics. Last but not least, my thanks to Senior Lecturer John Irons, Ph.D., who has made a spirited, dedicated contribution far beyond the bounds of translation. NIELS THOMASSEN viii Introduction The aim of this book is to promote the good in the world by rousing people to reflection and action. It is a moral philosophical move. It paints a large canvas - a smaller one will not do. The fundamental viewpoint is that ethics cannot be understood or founded independently of the place and function it occupies in our lives. Concrete arguments are provided for this thesis: a particular conception of communication and the role of ethics in communica tion is put forward. Ethics begins with experiences of good and evil. It has its midst in the formulation and foundation of universal moral demands. It concludes with the use of these demands on ethical experiences, on interpersonal communication. The book reflects this movement. It is circular, insofar as it begins and ends with communication and conflicts, but linear insofar as en route it finds and pursues ethics. Ethics is the philosophy of experience - in Hans-Georg Gadamer's understanding of the term (cf. Chapter 1). Its aim is to take up arms against evil and strike a blow for good. Its objective is to avoid and to solve conflicts using civilized means. The book takes examples of ethical experiences as its starting point. A paradigmatic example of conflict possibilities is found in Doris Lessing's novel The Grass is Singing (Chapter 2). Conflicts are forms of communication. Communication takes place about a matter, in a situation, between persons and by means of action. With the aid of these four concepts a theory of interpersonal communication - or practice if you like - is outlined (Chapter 3). People's lives are always intertwined. This is a basic tenet of communicative ethics, which has its roots in Hegel's dialectic of recognition and is to be found in various forms in the writings of such philosophers as Sartre, L0gstrup and Habermas. The last two mentioned, each other's antithesis in many ways, are presented and discussed, with special emphasis on their interpretation of the power which is at stake in communication (Chapter 4). ix x Introduction This leads to a formulation of the basic moral philosophical demand for ethical solidarity. This demand is rooted in communica tion analysis and in the idea of equality, understood as the equal right of all to a life of quality. Communicative ethics can be conceived of as an alternative to teleological and deontological ethics, related to a number of viewpoints put forward in the latest Anglo-American ethics, as exemplified by Williams, Nagel, Railton and Scheffler (Chapter 5). Solidarity is not a feeling. It is a particular way of being. Solidarity differs from love, though it has considerable points of similarity with it. Love and solidarity are therefore determined by means of a comparison (Chapter 6). Ethical action has a number of prerequisites. One concerns empathy, the capacity for sympathetic understanding of other people's joys and sorrows. Such a humanity is a necessary sub stratum for all ethics. A second prerequisite is a concept of what a life of quality and what happiness are. S0ren Kierkegaard can be taken as negative proof of the fact that a happy life has to be understood as actual, coherent, moving, secure, meaningful and understanding life (Chapter 7). Ethics ends where it begins: in everyday life, as applied ethics. Its application is illustrated within the areas of sex and violence, the latter including the two extremes of consciousness-raising and terrorism (Chapter 8). The book concentrates on breadth rather than depth. Such comprehensive subjects as a view of man and a concept of action are only summarily dealt with. The dimension of depth is here present in the form of support from other philosophers. I have, however, taken pains not to give long resumes of their thought, but confined myself to as concise and concentrated references as possible, though L0gStrup and Habermas are given fuller treatment. The book has at least one failing - it only deals with interpersonal relationships. Solidarity with nature, the animal world in particular, will have to wait for another occasion.
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