Weakening Habermas: the Undoing of Communicative Rationality

Abstract

Habermas's elaboration of a procedural, discursive deliberative democracy extends from his faith in communicative action, in symmetrical communicative interactions played out in an arena of communicative rationality. Yet Habermas expects too much of his agents. His theory of communicative action, built upon the necessary possession of communicative rationality, requires individuals to have clear, unfettered access to their own reasoning, possessing clear preference rankings and defendable rationales for their goals and values. Without such understandings, agents would have no reasons to extend or defend their positions in a discursive interchange; no validity claims are redeemable between communicative participants if the agent cannot access, substantiate or understand their own rationality. The psychological and discursive preconditions that agents must manifest to meet Habermas's conditions as participants in communicative rationality are exceptionally demanding. This paper brings empirical research from psychology and political science, and conceptual critiques from political philosophy, to bear on Habermas's agent.

Notes

1. Condorcet's Jury Theorem should claim a significant discussion here, but space does not allow.

2. Note, ‘decentered’ here is used in Piaget's sense, and Habermas explains the usage more fully than we are able to here.