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Communicative Action and Rational Choice.: Joseph Heath

1. Joseph Heath develops an account of practical reason that builds on criticisms of Habermas's theory of communicative action and instrumental rationality theories. 2. Heath argues that rational action is not always aimed at promoting preferences, since language use and solving problems of indeterminacy require norms like truth-telling that are independent of preferences. 3. Heath contends that agents can be committed to shared principles without being committed to any specific principles, allowing room for normative judgments to be true or false. However, the book does not fully address objections to this view.

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Marcelo Maciel
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85 views3 pages

Communicative Action and Rational Choice.: Joseph Heath

1. Joseph Heath develops an account of practical reason that builds on criticisms of Habermas's theory of communicative action and instrumental rationality theories. 2. Heath argues that rational action is not always aimed at promoting preferences, since language use and solving problems of indeterminacy require norms like truth-telling that are independent of preferences. 3. Heath contends that agents can be committed to shared principles without being committed to any specific principles, allowing room for normative judgments to be true or false. However, the book does not fully address objections to this view.

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Marcelo Maciel
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Joseph Heath Communicative Action and Rational Choice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 200l. Pp.

xii + 363. US$39.95. ISBN 0-262-08291-8.


In Communicative Action and Rational Choice, Joseph Heath develops an insightful account of practical reason that builds on his critical evaluations of both Jtirgen Habermas's theory of communicative action and the instrumental conception of rationality. Heath contends that reflection on the nature and use of language makes it clear that not all action, or even all rational action, can be understood instrumentally or, equivalently, as aimed at promoting the agent's preferences over outcomes. Heath argues that if all action were so aimed, then (1) language would never have come into existence, since symbols could not acquire meaning if their use was not, at least typically, independent of the agent's preferences over outcomes, and (2) even assuming language could somehow come into existence, it could not be used, as it is used, to solve the problem of indeterminacy - which results when there is an inadequate basis for forming expectations concerning the actions of others - since this use of language is possible only if the norm of truth-telling is generally respected. Heath then reasons that since language use, and in particular language use to solve the problem of indeterminacy, is rational, there must be cases of rational action that are not aimed at promoting the agent's preferences over outcomes. As Heath convincingly argues, his Habermasian picture is a significant improvement over Habermas's own picture in that it does not incorporate Habermas's problematic theory of meaning, according to which comprehending an imperative involves knowing what would make it acceptable. Toward working out an account of practical reason that does not have the limitations of a purely instrumental account, Heath makes explicit a distinction previously implicit in his discussion between desires (preferences over outcomes) and principles (preferences over actions). Though it at first struck me as odd and misleadingly labeled, this distinction allows Heath to make an interesting move. Heath argues that agents who are disposed to assign significant weight to shared principles can use language to solve the problem of indeterminacy. Furthermore, since agents can be socialized to seek shared principles and then give them priority, without necessarily being socialized to accept any principles in particular, an agent's commitment to certain principles need not be interpreted as merely the result of socialization. There is thus room for the view that normative judgments (or, more precisely, norm-based judgments interpreted as categorical rather than hypothetical imperatives) are straightforwardly true or false. Indeed, Heath defends this view, which he argues has been dismissed on inadequate grounds. Heath explains that while the view does not fit neatly with the position that truth is a substantive property of sentences or with foundationalism, these posi41

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tions are implausible; they should be rejected, according to Heath, in favor of deflationism and a dialogical and contextualist theory of justification according to which the background of any justification includes 'those beliefs that are taken for granted by the audience to whom the justification is addressed' (204). Still, according to Heath, more needs to be said since non-cognitivism about normative judgments does not stem primarily from philosophical theories, but from the great divergence concerning which normative judgments are correct. Rather than focus on showing that the divergence appealed to is exaggerated, Heath defends the more original and radical claim that the extent of convergence in a discourse depends not on whether the claims being made are straightforwardly true or false, but on the extent to which lack of convergence will have dire practical consequences. The pragmatist picture Heath develops is intriguing as well as effective in terms of casting doubt on pervasive views about why it is that beliefs converge to a much greater extent than desires. When combined with his view that without shared principles we will not have an adequate basis for forming expectations about the outcomes of our actions and thus no adequate basis for choice, Heath's pragmatist account of the variation that discourses exhibit in their levels of convergence makes sense of our level of commitment to achieving moral agreement. In particular, it makes sense of our persistence in arguing with those we interact with on a regular basis about candidates for shared principles until some sort of consensus, perhaps the result of compromise, emerges. Heath explains that the use of argumentation, rather than say coercion, to settle on a set of shared principles is not dispensable, since 'ultimately the system of norms will be stable only ifit is endorsed by all' (308); and since 'argumentation ... imposes a set of constraints that are captured in the familiar moral ideas of symmetry, reciprocity, recognition, and so forth, ... the decision to "talk it out" ... commits participants to a specifically moral resolution of their differences' (281). Heath's account of practical reason is impressively clear and subtle. I do, however, have a few worries. Here is my main worry: Suppose it is granted both that 'languages would be unlearnable if the norm of truth-telling was not generally respected' (302) and that 'agents are in a position to recognize that they would all be better off if they could come to some agreement [instead of all reasoning purely instrumentally]' (273). Still, once language is in place, each agent might also realize that, though she is disposed to seek and prioritize shared principles, insofar as she can weaken this disposition, which includes a willingness to compromise, she can take advantage of a system that requires only general adherence to survive. (Heath's claim that 'ultimately the system of norms will be stable only if it is endorsed by all' [my emphasis] seems an exaggeration.) In particular, the agent can pretend to accept the principles that have been settled on, but freely violate them whenever she can get away with or significantly benefit from doing so, taking into account of course the long term consequences of her action, including
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any effects on her future opportunities for profitable interaction with others. (Note that, unlike David Gauthier, Heath does not think it reasonable to assume that agents are 'translucent' so that a change in disposition would necessarily be detectable.) Nothing in Heath's account makes it clear that a mock compromiser is open to rational criticism, particularly since, assuming she can weaken her disposition to seek and prioritize shared principles, her strategy of pretending to agree to constraining principles will be her best strategy whether others also adopt this same strategy or follow the disposition they were socialized to have. Of course, she would be open to rational criticism if her choice were that all agents weaken their disposition to seek and prioritize shared principles, but that is not her choice (nor could it be, since she can choose only for herselD. This suggests that Heath's solution to the problem of indeterminacy is not reflectively stable, since the foreseeable temptation to only pretend to compromise is not countered by any reason to remain a genuine compromiser. Heath might reply that it follows from his dialogical model ofjustification that the agent I have been considering is open to rational criticism. The problem with this possible reply is that while Heath argues effectively against foundationalism, he does not provide any arguments against monological (i.e., non-dialogical) theories of justification in general. Though I have some worries about Heath's position, his thought-provoking book definitely vindicates his claim that we can expect a great payofffrom developing a dialogue between Habermas's theory of communicative action and the theory of rational choice.

Chrisoula Andreou University of Utah

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