Habermas's Treatment for Relativism
| Author | Ricardo Blaug |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1994.tb00117.x |
| Published date | 01 September 1994 |
| Date | 01 September 1994 |
Politics
(1994)
14(2)
pp.
51-57
Habermas’s Treatment
for
Relativism
Ricardo
Slaug
7%
paper introduces the critical theory
of
Jurgen Habermus
by
presenting it
as
a
response
to
the problems
of
relativism. Wile
relativism @ers
a
critique ofpower abuse, it
has the additional efect
of
undermining the
use
of
reason
in
political and moral action.
Habermas seeks to preserve its strengths, and
at the same time to defend a role
fir
reason.
Following
an
exploration
of
the gains Mered
by
his approach,
it
is
suggested that, though
his treatment
for
relativism
is
efective, it too
has
a
side-efect.
Progress is seldom an unmitigated success.
Often, solutions generate new problems
which themselves require treatment. In medi-
cine, a second symptom
which
is
caused
by
the attempt
to
cure thejirst,
is
referred
to
as
an
iatrogenic effect. In political
theory,
we
currently face just
this
situation, for while uni-
versities across continental Europe and
North
America produce vast quantities
of
negative
criticism
of
the abuses
of
power, an iatro-
genic effect has arisen: that
of
relativism. This
paper explores the
origins
of
relativism,
and
focuses on
its
inability
to
help us with our
real political concerns. It then inspects one
attempt
to
overcome relativism which is cur-
rently attracting increasing interest, this being
the critical theory
of
Jurgen Habermas.
From realism
to
relativism.
Before post-modernism, before even modern-
ism,
we
were
naive realists
We gazed dn-ectly
on the only possible moral world, our moral
intuitions were always correct,
and
we
knew
what was right.
We
can
see
naive realism in
operation in the ship’s log written by Colum-
bus upon arrival in America. Remarking on
how friendly
the
Indians were, the log then
baldly states the following: ‘the natives bear
no arms
...
with
fifty
men we could make them
do
whatever
we
want’
(Zinn,
1980,
p.1).
The nastiness
of
such a view seems extra-
ordmary
to
us today. But more extraordinary
still
is
the innocence
of
Columbus’s remark.
He never doubted
the
superiority
of
his
own
values,
and
it
simply
did not occur to him
that
an Indian culture, though different from his
own,
might
be
equally valid.
For
hs
reason,
we can describe his realism
as
naive.
At
the
same time, we can
see
that Columbus made
the assumption that his
own
knowledge was
applicable everywhere, that
it
was,
in effect,
universal.
Naive realism thus deploys suppo-
sedly universal knowledge
to
trump any com-
peting description
of
the world.
Since that time,
we
have lost (at least) the
innocence
of
our domination. During
the
last
century, philosophy has worked
to
system-
atically undermine
all
forms
of
universal
Ricardo
Blaug,
University
of
Manchester.
0
Political Studies Association 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108
Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF,
UK
and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142,
USA.
51
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