I have just finished attending my Philosophy class. Sir Archie isn't around because they had retreat, so it was Sir Jay again who handled our Philo class this morning. Last Saturday, we talked about IMMANUEL KANT and his philosophy. Today we focused our discussion on JURGEN HABERMAS who believes that there is too much relativism and pluralism on this world. Relativism is a belief that truth is actually created by man. Pluralism states that a diversed culture creates an atmosphere with different individuals having different conviction.
So what did Habermas say? According to our discussion, relativism and pluralism are good starting points for a universal morality. Although people have different conviction and beliefs, there is still one thing that is common among men -- that is the faculty of REASON. Habermas advocates DISCOURSE ETHICS. You see, according to Sir Jay, people are always making claims and their claims could either be assertive claims or normative claims. All these claims can, in fact, be legitimized. This idea made me stop while listening to the professor. In the middle of our discussion, I thought, "So how can all these claims be legitimized?" Before my mind wandered, the professor answered the question I had in mind.
Claims can actually be legitimized by entering into a DISCOURSE. So who could join the discourse? Everyone who has the confidence to speak and act is welcome. And these rules should apply in any discourse: 1. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion; 2. everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion; 3. everyone is allowed to express his own attitude, desires and needs; and 4. no speaker may be prevented from his right to speak out.
Discourse participants should remember that whenever they make claims, they must be ready to face criticisms and even rejection. And in a discourse, if the participants don't end up with a compromise, violence can happen. But ideally, the discourse should produce a consensus among the participants. The discourse is a venue to air all sides and meet halfway. The reason for the discourse is to arrive at a UNIVERSAL NORM. In Habermas' context, a universal norm is not something to be taken literally. His concept of universal norm is whatever claim that has been legitimized by the power of discourse. In short, there is really no such thing as universal morality because all of us actually create our own truth. Habermas just define universal truth/norm as that which is true for a specific community or group. There is actually no truth that is true for all.
Anyway, the good thing about our class is that there are three nationalities in one four-walled classroom. Most are Filipinos, of course, there is one American, and two Indians. The mixture of three nationalities in one ETHICAL VALUES class will be beneficial for all of us. We get to learn from each other's culture and experiences. The only problem with my classmates is that there is one person who always want to say something. He likes talking about his own view of the world. The thing is, he doesn't know how to explain briefly. He always goes around the bush. It takes him a lot of minutes to talk about a very simple thought. That is why my Indian classmates would always butt in when he speaks. :-)
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