The normative foundations of critical realism: a comment on Dave Elder-Vass and Leigh Price

ABSTRACT

As a comment on the debate between Dave Elder-Vass and Leigh Price, I propose a dialogue between Bhaskar and Habermas. If we could introduce critical realism into critical theory, we might be able to strengthen its critique of positivism. Conversely, if we introduce critical theory into critical realism, we might be able to defend with more force judgmental rationalism and moral realism. The intuition that will guide my reflections is that the dialogical reconstruction of Habermas and Bhaskar can uphold the ‘holy trinity’ of ontological realism, epistemic relativism and judgmental rationalism in the field of ethics. If we succeed in defending moral realism and judgmental rationalism, we will avoid the spectre of moral relativism.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical theory
• Habermas
• explanatory critique
• moral realism
• judgmental rationalism
• discourse ethics

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank the editor of JCR for the invitation to join the debate and Cynthia Hamlin for advice and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Frédéric Vandenberghe is Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IFCS-UFRJ) in Brazil. He has published widely in the field of social theory. His most recent books are What’s Critical about Critical Realism? Essays in Reconstructive Social Theory (2014) and, with Margaret Archer, Le Réalisme Critique. Une Nouvelle Ontologie Pour La Sociologie (2019).

Notes

1 The longer version of the argument was published in the Journal of Critical Realism. See Elder-Vass (2010).

2 Price (2018), “Moral Realism Revindicated: Response to Elder-Vass” (Manuscript, available on academia.edu).

3 Four generations indeed: From Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse (first generation) via Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel and Albrecht Wellmer (second generation) to Axel Honneth, Seyla Benhabib and Nancy Frazer (third generation) and Rainer Forst, Rachel Jaeggi and Hartmut Rosa (fourth generation).

4 This is what is happening in Brazil, where I am stationed. Human rights have become contentious. An extreme extreme right has won the elections. President Bolsonaro alleges that human rights only protect criminals and he proposes a basic restriction of its remit: ‘Human rights for the right humans’, to quote a widespread slogan. Another slogan ‘A good bandit is a dead bandit’ goes in the same direction. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the governor has allowed snipers and drones to shoot criminals and target ‘their little heads’ when they wear their arms in public.

5 For a critique of theories of human flourishing within critical realism, see Vandenberghe (2017).

6 The forthcoming publication of a massive work of 1700 pages by Habermas (2019) on faith and religion in the Western philosophical tradition will only increase the suspicion that, like Bhaskar, Archer and Bishop Rowan, the old Habermas will also have his ‘spiritual turn’, introduce the transcendent in a transcendental approach, and return to the Church before he dies.

7 For a superb rational reconstruction of, and intervention in the positivist debate, see also Apel (1979).

8 In ‘Realism after the Linguistic Turn’, the long and rather difficult introduction to Truth and Justification, Habermas (1999, 7–64) arrived at the same conclusion. To overcome his idealist tendencies, he drew heavily on American pragmatism and reintroduced the referential dimension of materiality that is inherent to the sciences. He extensively engages Random, Putnam and Rorty, but, most unfortunately, he does not once quote Bhaskar, most probably because he has never heard of him.