An Investigation of Moral Rationalism and the Normative Core of Critical Social and Political Theory

Reconstructing Reason: An Investigation of Moral Rationalism and the Normative Core of Critical Social and Political Theory By John D. Lundy A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Philosophy Guelph, Ontario, Canada © John Lundy, March, 2012 ABSTRACT RECONSTRUCTING REASON: An Investigation of Moral Rationalism and the Normative Core of Critical Social and Political Theory John D. Lundy Advisor: University of Guelph, 2012 Omid A. Payrow Shabani This thesis is an analysis of notions of practical reason at the heart of moral rationalism, broadly conceived. In the Western tradition, at least since the Enlightenment, most moral philosophers and political theorists have thought their task was to develop credible alternatives to the traditional justifications of norms, principles, and institutions based on settled tradition or divine authority. The prevailing enlightenment tendency was to insist that the best way to figure out how to live would involve, instead or in addition to other methods, a significant role for some kind of thinking process called practical reasoning. Today we face the dilemma that globalization in the face of diversity has made it increasingly impossible to ignore the absence of any settled tradition which could act as a foundation for moral, social, and political practice, while both modern and ancient conceptions of practical reason have fallen under suspicion (some of it well- founded). I seek to answer the question: under these conditions, can we still expect to find, in reason, a legitimate basis for our social and political norms and practices? I suggest we can. My approach is bracketed by what I claim to be two prevalent extremes. At one side there is the enlightenment and its scientistic heirs (particularly rational choice theory), and on the other, certain post-modern (over)reactions to the enlightenment failure, which allow rationality to lose its critical normative force. The constructive aim of this work involves drawing on leading contemporary thinkers who attempt to hang on to a connection between practical reason and normativity (particularly John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Martha Nussbaum). They attempt this, I argue, by reacting to, and developing, landmark paradigms in the history of ideas about practical reason, particularly those of Aristotle, Hume and Kant. I then evaluate their attempts and synthesise their insights into a normatively critical account of moral rationalism, which I call the Discourse-Capabilities Approach, an approach that incorporates core insights of Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and their contemporary heirs, while avoiding what I claim are the main defects associated with each of these accounts. iv Dedicated to the memory of my mother Maida Lundy and for my Grandmother Sheila Lundy who has been like a mother to me in her absence. v Acknowledgments I would like, most particularly, to thank my advisor Omid A. Payrow Shabani along with the other members of my thesis committee, Karen Wendling and Renato Cristi for their encouragement and for helping to make my work stronger through their thoughtful and instructive critical engagements. In addition, I would like to thank my external examiner Simone Chambers for her enthusiastic interest in the arguments I have develop here and for her genuine philosophical engagement with my efforts. Thank also to all my friends and family, and most especially my partner Sabina Naziri, for their support throughout this project. I also acknowledge financial support from of the University of Guelph and the Government of Ontario in the form of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. vi Contents General Introduction 1 1) Questions and Objectives 2 2) Irrationality 9 3) Towards a Reconstructed Reason 14 4) Cosmopolitanism 19 5) Overview 23 Chapter One 30 A Brief History of Practical Reason I: Ancient to Modern Introduction 31 1) Reason from the Beginning: Aristotle 36 1.1) Nous 39 1.2) Phronesis 40 1.3) Eudaimonia 46 1.4) Weaknesses of the Aristotelian Approach 52 2) The Age of Reason 54 Chapter Two 67 A Brief History of Practical Reason II: The Enlightenment 1) Hume’s Sceptical Reason 68 1.1) Hume’s Reason: Analyzing the Concept 69 1.2) Reason and Conduct: Further Implication of Hume’s Theory of Reason 73 1.3) Critical Remarks 79 2) Kant: A New Paradigm in Practical Reason 83 2.1) The Unity of Reason 83 2.2) Theoretical Reason 84 2.3) Kant’s Revolution in Ethics 86 2.4) Kant’s Fundamental Moral Principle 88 2.5) Freedom 93 2.6) The Possibility of Autonomy 95 2.7) Weaknesses of the Kantian Strategy 100 3) Conclusion 108 vii Chapter Three 113 Facing the Contemporary Dilemma Introduction 114 1) The Dominant Model 117 1.1) Rational Choice Theory 119 1.2) An Immanent Critique 127 1.3) The Frankfurt School Critique 138 2) The Radical Critiques 144 2.1) Nietzsche and the Other-of-Reason 144 2.2) Rorty: Philosophy as Advertisement 151 2.3) Conclusion 166 3) A Neo-Aristotelian Approach 167 3.1) Contemporary Aristotelianism 168 3.2) Nussbaum’s Aristotelian Moral Rationalism 170 Chapter Four 184 John Rawls and the Reinvigoration of Moral Rationalism Introduction 185 1) Rawls’ Moral Rationalism: A Thumbnail Sketch 191 2) Practical Reason: An Overview 196 3) Moral Powers, the Reasonable, and the Rational 201 4) Constructing a Theory of Justice 208 5) Principles of Justice: Application 219 6) A Two Stage Theory 222 7) An Advancement of Practical Reason Beyond Aristotle & Kant? 224 8) Practical Reason: A Closer Look 229 Chapter Five 251 A New Rationalist Foundation for Critical Social Theory: Habermas’ Reassertion of Moral Rationalism Introduction 252 1) Linguistic and Social Theoretical Foundation 255 1.1) Enlightenment Contradictions 255 1.2) Lifeworld 258 1.3) Communication and Social Order 260 viii 1.4) System 262 1.5) Social order: System or Lifeworld? 267 1.6) Communicative vs. Strategic Action 270 1.7) Colonization of the Lifeworld 278 1.8) Beyond Instrumental Reason 282 1.9) Communicative Reason and the Theory of Meaning 283 1.10) Discourse 290 1.11) Transcendental Argument and Reconstructive Science 294 2) Discourse Ethics 297 2.1) Introduction 297 2.2) Kant and Modernity 299 2.3) Reformulating the Categorical Imperative 301 2.4) Reconceiving Autonomy and Deontology 304 2.5) Practical Reason 306 2.6) The Principle of Universalization 308 2.7) The Justification of the Principle of Universalization 311 2.8) More Justification: Replies to Sceptical Counterarguments 315 2.9) Emotions and Motivations 320 3) Conclusion 323 Chapter Six 332 330 Conclusions: Outline for a Reconstructive Approach to Moral Rationalism 1) Taking Stock 334 1.1) Practical Questions & Rational Capacities: The Examined Life as the One Worth Living 334 1.2) The Rational Will: Lessons From The Copernican Revolution in Ethics 337 1.3) Capabilities & Grounding Experiences 340 1.4) Pluralism & Public Reason 342 1.5) Discourse Beyond the Philosophy of Consciousness 347 2) Synthesis 350 2.1) Incorporating Equality 356 2.3) Overview of the Outline 360 2.3) Question and Answer: Elaborating the Outline 364 2.4) A Final Note 373 ix A Note on Referencing All citations are given as endnotes using Arabic Numerals, and come at the end of each chapter. Side notes to the text are found at the bottom of the page and are marked with Roman Letters. The page numbering for Aristotle references are that of the standard Berlin Academy Edition of the Greek text (1831-1870). When referencing larger sections of Aristotle, book and chapters numbers are given rather than page numbers. All page references to Kant refer to the standard Royal Prussian Academy* Edition of the German text. *(a.k.a. the “German Academy” (Post 1946) and the “Berlin Academy” (post 1993)) x Human Madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form…not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentrated cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousandfold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object. —Herman Melville, Moby Dick John D. Lundy 1 General Introduction John D. Lundy 2 This introduction has three principle aims: First, I offer a general characterization of the basic purpose, motivation, topics, and objectives of this work (covered largely in Section 1) as well as elucidating some broad features of the particular sort of approach I recommend (begun in Section 1 and continued in Section 4). Second, I preface my discussion with some preliminary arguments, particularly about irrationalist approaches and the ways in which they are antithetical to the moral rationalism developed in this thesis (Section 2) and about the cosmopolitan nature of the moral rationalism I seek to develop (Section 4). Third, I will offer a specific outline of the structure according to which I unfold this investigation (Section 5). 1) Questions and Objectives I find our human, social world to be a rather irrational place. I take this to be a particularly troubling fact since, I believe, a decent world, a just world, would mean a more rational one. Here, in this thesis, I want to investigate that suspicion. It has been my hope that movement toward a better, more rational world is possible. My guiding motivation here has been to discover whether that hope is well founded and how, in the first place, it might be legitimate to criticize current practices and institutions as irrational.

Load more