3.7 - White, Stephen K. - Justice and the Postmodern Problematic (en)

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Justice and the Postmodern Problematic

Justice and the Postmodern Problematic

by Stephen K. White

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PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3+4 / 1987, pages: 306-319, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=95a45f0d-f2c0-4003-90c1-b55ffe1d4be9http://www.ceeol.com/


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JUSTICE AND THE POSTMODERN PROBLEMATICStephen K. White

It is becoming increasingly commonplace to hear that the conditions ofmodern life are being superseded or undermined in significant ways. Thesources of this change and the character of the effect it is having are subjects ofdispute, as are the labels which are chosen to specify this complexphenomenon. Some prefer the notion of a "post-industrial society," othersthat of an "informational mode of production;" still others speak in a broadersense of a "postmodern condition."lWhat I want to investigate here is how this complex phenomenon ought toinfluence the way one thinks about justice. In order to make headway on thisspecific question, is first necessary to broach the general one as to which arethe most significant changes modernity is undergoing.The term "postmodern" has been most often associated with aesthetics andepistemology whereas the term "post-industrial" has been most often associated with changes in technology and society. I will be using the term"postmodern" as a rubric under which to group all of these types ofphenomena. Making plausible the claim that we are living in a distinctivelynew, postmodern society is an immense task which I will not take on here.Rather, I will be suggesting simply that the phenomena I specify togetherconstitute a postmodern problematic: new challenges, dilemmas andopportllnities. If this claim is plausible, then the problems I will discuss inregard to justice are ones which need to be taken seriously. The postmodernproblematic is constituted by four phenomena: the increasing unpersuasiveness of metanarratives, the rise of new informational technologies, thegrowing awareness of new problems associated with societal rationalization,and the emergence of new social movements.2(I) The Postmodern Problematic

(A) Jean-Francois Lyotard sees the hallmark of postmodernism as an"incredulity toward metanarratives."3 By metanarratives, Lyotard meansthose basic interpretive schemes which have constituted the ultimate andunquestioned sources for the justification of scientific and political projects inthe modern world. Incredulity toward metanarratives is a theme shared by ahost of contemporary "post-metaphysical" thinkers.4 But incredulity is notthe only thing at issue here. Just as importantly, there is the general sense thatour Western metanarratives, because of their universalistic claims, havecarried with them a pernicious cultural imperialism. s As these philosophicalanchors of our moral-political traditions increasingly give way, we are facedwith the task of articulating distinctively different justifications for values wecontinue to embrace.Praxis International7:3/4Winter 1987/8 0260-8448 $2.00


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Praxis International 307(B) A second element of the postmodern problematic is the rise of newinformational technologies, by which I mean all forms of media, beginningespecially with television, that vastly enhance the circulation of images andinformation. What makes these technologies problematic is their political

ambivalence. 6 On the one hand, they are often seen as instruments forempowering individuals, a view clearly evident in the IBM television commercial that shows a Charlie Chaplin look-alike bringing his life into order withthe help of a personal computer. The message, of course, is that because ofnew informational technology postmodern times will be better than moderntimes. A parallel view holds that the decentralizing potential of some of thenewest technology can also enhance the prospects of radically democratizingpolitical life. 7 On the other hand, informational technology is just as oftenseen as the instrument of an emerging Big Brother or a potent new ideologicalapparatus of corporate capitalism. What these opposing views have incommon is an agreement on the power of such technologies to structure theconsciousness and self-identity of individuals and groups. What they disagreeabout is the question of who will likely control these technologies and whatpurposes they will serve. The dispute thus expresses a postmodern variant ofthe traditional problem of power and freedom.(C) I identified the third element of the postmodern problematic as agrowing awareness of new problems associated with societal rationalization.What I mean by this is that social theorists are increasingly reestimating thecosts of Western modernization in an upward direction. Prominent amongsuch reevaluations are Foucault's analysis of the process of "normalization,"Habermas' of "the colonization of the lifeworld," and Lyotard's of the logic of"performativity."g Such reevaluations draw attention to (among other things)problems associated with the growth of the welfare activities of the modernstate. They recognize that, however benevolent these activities may be inintention, the discourses and institutions which emerge with them oftenpromote a progressive disempowerment of their clients. For theorists of theleft this insight signals a need for radical self-reexamination. It must beemphasized, however, that such an insight is not equivalent to the standardconservative warnings about the evils of modern state power. It is differentbecause it is coupled with a recognition that the discourses and institutions ofcorporate capitalism in an informational age also participate in a logic ofdisempowerment. And it is only this dual concern which characterizes therecognition of a postmodern problematic.(D) The fourth phenomenon I want to consider is the appearance of newvalues and "new social movements" in Western, industrialized societies.9Social scientists have for some time been calling attention to the emergence of"post-materialist values" and new sorts of groups, for whom politics is not inthe first instance a matter of compensations that the corporate economyor welfare state can provide. Rather the question is how to defend or reinstateendangered ways of life, or how to put reformed ways of life into practice. Inshort, the new conflicts are not sparked by problems of distribution, but concernthe grammar of forms of life. IQ

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308 Praxis InternationalThe women's movement, the peace movement, radical ecologists, gays,religious fundamentalists, and countercultural groups in general all share, atleast to some degree, this new status, even if they differ in many substantiveways. They all have a somewhat defensive character as well as a focus onstruggling for the ability to socially construct their own collective identity,characteristics which make them rather anomalous in relation to the standardrules for interest group behaviour in tIle modern state. On the other hand,though, they are just as anomalous for Marxian-influenced theories of the leftwhich continually seek the social embodiment of a revolutionary subjectivitythat will speak and act in the name of all disaffected groups. What stands outabout new social movements is an irreducible pluralism and suspicion oftotalistic revolutionary programs.The status and qualities of such new social movements have been paidincreasing attention by philosophers and social theorists who hope for a futurewhere both the "normalizing" processes of the corporate capitalist, welfarestate system and the repressive closures of revolutionary systems are activelyresisted. These theorists celebrate the emergence of "local" resistance(Foucault), "border conflict" (Habermas), "local determinism" (Lyotard),and particularistic "lines of flight" (Deleuze) from the societal or revolutionary rationalization of life. 11(11) The New Pluralist JusticeIn what follows I will show how some recent thinking about justice orientsitself to one or more of the components of the postmodern problematic. As thediscussion proceeds, I will be claiming that an adequate conceptualization ofjustice ought to take into account all of these components and do so in a waywhich also articulates our most reflective moral judgments at least as well asthe best ofmore traditional theories of justice. In this section, I will begin withthe way recent thinking about justice has responded to the death ofmetanarratives.Traditional theories of justice are ones tied to some sort of metanarrativethat anchors them philosophically and gives them a claim to universal validity.

For present purposes, the most important of these are the liberal and Marxianperspectives. The former grounds justice in quasi-Kantian assumptions aboutindividuals and goods while the latter grounds it in assumptions about historyand emancipation. Two recent attempts to rethink justice without either ofthese foundational crutches are Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice andJean-Francois Lyotard's Just Gaming. 12Both Lyotard and Walzer react against the totalizing effect of metanarratives of justice; that is, the subordination of plurality and heterogeneity tounity and homogeneity under the regime of some universal principles ofjustice. Both seek a new account of pluralism which shows the illegitimacy ofsuch a position. What makes this a new account is, first, that it does not attachits claims directly to individuals and the sovereign choice of their own gods orgoods; rather pluralism is seen as having an irreducible social or intersubjective dimension. Gods or goods only have a coherent meaning and validity


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Praxis International 309within an intersubjectively shared language game. Second, this new pluralismemphasizes that a crucial part of doing justice is "listening"-moving awayfrom the fixation with authoring new principles and toward proceduresattuned to recognizing the "boundaries" of a heterogeneous world. I3 In thissense, Walzer and Lyotard are both strongly committed to developing anotion of justice which is more open to otherness. Here the contrast withtraditional views of justice can be described as one between approaches whichare primarily attuned to a sense of responsibility to otherness versus ones attunedto a responsibility to act, or, more specifically in this case, a responsibility toauthor determinate and unambiguous principles for judgment and action. 14Walzer has done more than anyone else to establish the internal coherenceof the new pluralist view of justice. I will argue, however, that one must gobeyond Walzer in two ways. First, he fails to contextualize this new viewadequately in the present historical situation; that is, in relation to otherdimensions of the postmodern problematic. Lyotard and others are moreilluminating in this regard (although they have not developed their ideas aboutjustice nearly as well as Walzer). Second, where Walzer does engage thepostmodern problematic-the death of metanarratives-he leaves one withsome concern about how his views resonate with our most reflective moraljudgments.(Ill) Otherness and the Other Dimensions of the Postmodern ProblematicIn Walzer, the emphasis on listening, boundaries and otherness at leastpartially reflects a general concern about Western cultural imperialism. This isevident in his frequent use of non-Western and pre-modern anthropologicalsources. IS Even more explicitly, however, Walzer draws justification from theway his approach provides defenses against totalitarianism. A totalitariansociety is the polar opposite of a society respecting boundaries betweendifferent spheres of life. I6 Walzer is no doubt right about this in a generalsense, but the question I want to raise is whether invoking the spectre of theclassical totalitarian party-state adequately illuminates the character of existing threats to achieving more justice in Western societies. Here the

postmodern thinkers are providing better insight. Totalitarianism andWestern cultural imperialism are of course seen by them as dangers; but at thesame time they are attempting to grasp social and political phenomena whichare not adequately comprehended by these concepts. They are concerned witha systemic, rationalizing process, the effects of which threaten precisely thekind of values Walzer wants to see protected.In a general sense, reference to some such process goes back to Marx.However, theorists attuned to the postmodern problematic depart sharply, asI have said, from Marx's totalistic revolutionary program and his failure to seea threat of disempowerment in the political sphere as well as the economic.These theorists are closer to Weber in their appreciation of the paradoxicalqualities of modern life and in their lack of programatic optimism.But postmodern reflection also departs from Weber in significant ways.Two of these are particularly important in the present context. An illumi-


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310 Praxis Internationalnation of these contrasts will help locate ways in which postmodern reflectionon justice needs to go beyond Walzer.CA) The first is most evident in the work of Foucault. His analysis of thenormalizing logic of modern life looks beyond Weber's concern for theindividual subject's freedom in a world increasingly dominated by rationallegal authority; it goes further and finds that our conceptions of subjectivityare themselves already deeply structured by processes of power. And theseprocesses are inextricably related to the generation ofknowledge in the humansciences, as Foucault's analyses of punishment and sexuality have shown. 17What this means is that the logic of societal rationalization in modern lifepenetrates the consciousness of individuals more deeply than Weber imagined, and that the growing informationalization of society is only likely tomake this problem more acute. We are bathed in an increasing volume ofinformation which is continually coded and recoded to meet the interests ofcorporate capitalism and public administration; and in this process ourtraditions, expectations and consciousness of who we are are deeply structured.An adequate sense of the postmodern problematic does not mean that onesees societal rationalization and informationalization in a one-sidedly negativelight. Although Foucault sometimes seems to lean this way, others such asLyotard and Habermas are more explicit about the ambivalence of thesecomplex phenomena. They have the potential for empowerment as well as fordisempowerment. And the problem for critical political reflection is to analyzethe conditions under which the former is more consistently fostered.

If these theorists are correct, this has distinct implications for the newpluralist approach to justice, for societal rationalization in an age of informationalization threatens otherness and the autonomy of different spheres ofmeaning in new and sublte ways. It does so because the dominant discoursesand institutions which carry that rationalization process forward so structurepublic meanings that alternative discourses find critical footholds difficult tosecure. 18 What this means is that openness to the continual emergence ofotherness is under a systematic threat which Walzer does not bring into theforeground of his reflections on justice.One of the real strengths of Foucault's mode of analysis as one initial sourceof insight into questions of justice is that it makes far more phenomena in aninformationalizing society appear to be power phenomena than do traditionalapproaches. His persistent use of metaphors of warfare promotes a kind ofhypersensitivity to problems of power. Now, no plausible approach to justicecan be oriented solely around such hypersensitivity; but, for an approachwhich takes seriously all dimensions of the postmodern problematic, this kindof initial orientation is appropriate. The reason for this is that justice isconcerned with claims in conflict. But if the conflict is deeply latent or merelypotential, then no one is actually staking a claim. Otherness trails off intovoicelessness.Here even a model like Habermas' communicative one, with its particularsensitivity to power arrangements, is not sensitive enough, because itpresupposes speaking participants in its ideal speech situation. Now of coursefew people are literally speechless, but that is not the point; rather the point is


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Praxis International 311having available a language game in which certain potentialities of perceptionand identity can find coherent expression. The theorist cannot literally bringsuch a language game into existence; however, the employment of Foucauldian metaphors, with their presumption of contending claimants, at leastfocuses attention toward sites where the voice of otherness might emerge.CB) A second way in which postmodern reflection on rationalization andinformationalization differs from Weber relates to the topic of legitimationand authority. Weber's logic of rationalization involves rational-legalauthority increasingly displacing traditional and charismatic authority.19 Inframing the problem this way, Weber establishes the parameters of a socialworld in which otherness will increasingly be cornered in shrinking spheres oflocalized traditional life or burst out s p ~ r a d i c a l l y in charismatic movements.From this perspective, if one tries to interpret the phenomena of "postmaterial values" and "new social movements," one is bound to see them assome sort of manifestation of charisma. For postmodern theorists, however,such an interpretation is not very insightfuL 19a Foucault, Habermas andLyotard each find in such movements normative qualities which are missed bythe Weberian perspective. This is not to say, however, that any of thesethinkers sees new social movements as somehow embodying a world-historicalrevolutionary subjectivity. Rather, these movements, like the processes ofrationalization and informationalization in the context of which they areemerging, have an ambiguous character. And the work of Habermas,Foucault and Lyotard can be seen, at least partially, as helping to give morecoherence to those normative qualities which are resistant to the logic ofrationalization.20Foucault, of course, was extraordinarily wary of any such search fornormative coherence. Although he was aware of the necessity of it, his workalways gravitated instead to reemphasizing the dangers to otherness implicit insuch a task and to reflecting on how otherness could express itself. 21 Lyotardand Habermas, however, are convinced that the task has to be taken up moreexplicitly.In doing so, they distinguish themselves sharply from the Weberianperspective. Both attempt to elucidate something like a post-traditional,rational basis of legitimacy which is not reducible to any of Weber'salternatives.22 Such a normative construction would have two componentsrelevant to justice. First, it would focus attention on the ways in which aninformationalizing society undercuts potential conceptual footholds forcounter-discourses. Secondly, it would offer some account of constraints onotherness or plurality. Without such an account, postmodern politicalreflection ends up generating only guidelines and speculation about "strategiesfor survival" in contemporary life, with each strategy released from anynormative responsibility to the others. 23 The real problem, as Lyotard puts it,is to develop a normative perspective "that would respect both the desire forjustice and the desire for the unknown"; or, as I put it earlier, that wouldrespect both the responsibility to act in a normatively justifiable way as well asthe responsibility to otherness.24 I will look briefly now at the first componentand more extensively at the second in the next section.


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312 Praxis InternationalIn relation to informationalizing society and the space for counterdiscourses, it is useful to turn again to Walzer for some initial bearings. Whenhe speaks of spheres of justice, he is primarily concerned with elaborating theinternal coherence of existing spheres and warning against allowing themeanings constituted within one sphere to be dominated by meaningsappropriate to another sphere. But how does this relate to the problem ofprotecting the potential for new spheres of meaning?Walzer, of course, is astute enough to recognize that sometimes it makessense to doubt whether dominant, shared meanings are "really shared." Andhe notes parenthetically that where this is suspected or where explicitcontroversy over meanings exists, " ... then justice requires that the societybe faithful to the disagreements, providing institutional channels for theirexpression, adjudicative mechanisms, and alternative distributions."25 Whatis parenthetical in Walzer, though, is shifted into the foreground, once oneconfronts the full range of the postmodern problematic. Both Lyotard andHabermas seek normative orientations that immediately turn our attention tothe investigation of the institutional settings and media arrangements in whichnew meanings, identities, and discourses can emerge and maintain themselves. 26 Now hardly anyone would deny that contemporaryWestern societiesgenerate swarms of new discourses all the time. The problem is how todevelop criteria for discriminating between pre-packaged newness and newness in which one can have at least some confidence of its autonomousqualities.Specifying the grounds upon which one can have some confidence in therelative autonomy of new discourses is a complex matter. No simple blueprint

of communication structures and institutional arrangements will be satisfactory. For one thing, as indicated in my discussion of Foucault, the wholequestion of power and freedom in an informationalizing society is one whichmust be continually asked in different ways. In addition, the problem of whatit means for emerging discourses to gain some degree of control over, "thesocio-cultural means of interpretation and communication" is rather moredifficult to specify than in the classic case of control over the means ofproduction. The means of interpretation and communication includethe officially recognized vocabularies in which one can press claims; the idiomsavailable for interpreting and communicating one's needs; the establishednarrative conventions available for constructing the individual and collectivehistories which are constitutive of social identity; the paradigm of argumentationaccepted as authoritative in adjudicating conflicting claims; the ways in whichvarious discourses constitute their respective subject matters as specific sorts ofobjects; the repertory of available rhetorical devices; the bodily and gesturaldimensions of speech which are associated in a given society with authority andconviction. 27

This list gives a good sense of the depth of the problem of arranging the meansof interpretation and communication so that new or submerged discourses canbecome empowered rather than disempowered. In the present context,however, I am not concerned with the prescribing how this task should be


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Praxis International 313carried out. My point is simply to establish the significance of this for a theoryof justice pursued within the postmodern problematic.(IV) Constraining PluralismAn approach to justice which both fosters otherness or pluralism, andreflects and enriches our considered moral judgments is one which authorsand defends certain constraints. Even after one has deconstructively heightened sensitivity to the dangers involved in constraining pluralism-seen nowas disciplining otherness-this task remains. A useful way to think aboutconstraints on new pluralist accounts of justice is to distinguish two levels.First , there must be some global principle of pluralism. And, second, t11ere

must be some more specific procedural principles which provide normativeguidelines for situations where plural forms of life come into conflict. I willcontrast Walzer's approach to these two levels with that of postmodernthinkers in order to see if the latter present more adequate arguments. Iconsider even modest advances here significant, because this is one of the mostphilosophically complex problems facing postmodern normative reflection.

The global principle informing Walzer's approach is one which transformshis thesis about the distinctiveness of meanings in different spheres into aclaim about the rightness of treating distinctive spheres as autonomous. 28 Theprinciple itself takes something lik.e the following form: one ought torecognize and respect the cultural creations of others. 29 It is this which turnsWalzer's conceptual insights about social meanings into a rich normativevision of complex equality. What is a bit surprising is how little is said aboutthis principle which apparently is accorded universal validity. The questionhere is not, of course, one of demanding some absolute grounds for theprinciple, but rather some account of the rationale by which it would havesignificance and validity for us.Lyotard is acutely aware of the difficulty of combining a radical commitment to otherness with a universalistic principle of constraint. His commitment to otherness is expressed in the notion of "paralogism." This termdenotes the logic emphasized by the new philosophy of science. It legitimatesa continual search for new "moves" which challenge the consensus ofdominant paradigms. "In terms of the idea of transparency," paralogism"generates blind spots and defers consensus."30 Lyotard suggests that thisprinciple of science might also serve as a model for the justice of society. Inother words paralogism will be the basic principle justifying the openness tootherness in politics. The proliferation of "small narratives" will both replacethe centripetal force of traditional metanarratives of legitimacy and counterthe logic of "performativity" (the term Lyotard uses for the dominant logic ofsocietal rationalization).31

But paralogism must be related somehow to normative constraints. Inscience, i t is constrained by general criteria of progressiveness, especiallyexpansion of the explanatory scope of theories and increase in their predictivepower. What plays an analogous role in regard to matters of justice? What, inshort, constrains the plurality endorsed by paralogism?With some reluctance,


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314 Praxis InternationalLyotard borrows here from Kant, insofar as the latter's morality is regulatedby the "Idea" or "horizon" of "reasonable beings . . . that can exist togetherand form a totality." This horizon is not a metaphysical one but rather"simply a pushing to the limit, the maximization of a concept. And theconcept here is that of freedom, that is, of reason in its practical use."32Lyotard wants to use this notion of a horizon in relation to maximizing theconcept of diversity or multiplicity. The question now becomes one ofreflecting upon what is just or unjust "against the horizon of a multiplicity or adiversity" of small narratives, none of which can legitimately sanction thedomination of another. Lyotard thus recommends the following universalprinciple: "one must maximize as much as possible the multiplication of smallnarratives."33Despite the apparent Kantian, juridical flavor of this principle, Lyotarddefends it in terms drawn from classical Greek philosophy. The attempt ofone language game to dominate another is condemned as pleonexia or excess.But pleonexia had significance in Greek philosophy primarily in relation to atheory of the virtues, which specified certain substantive ideals of individualcharacter. 34 When Lyotard uses the concept, however, it is related only to theformal principle of multiplying small narratives. This produces a shift inmeaning which empties the concept of its traditional sense, but which doesnot clearly substitute any other.Thus, Lyotard, leaves one as perplexed as Walzer does about the normativeforce of his general principle for constraining pluralism. Lyotard's efforts do,however, provide some useful direction. In appealing to the notion ofpleonexia, he is seeking some way of thinking about balance and imbalance incontemporary life. What I would suggest is that the proper way of articulatingsuch a notion is not in direct relation to the classical theory of virtue, butrather in relation to what Habermas has called the one-sided or "imbalanced"development of the potential of modern culture in the context of societalrationalization.35Habermas argues that what differentiates modern culture is its recognitionof distinctive rationales attaching to scientific-technical, moral-practical andaesthetic-expressive experience.36 Societal rationalization or modernization,however, has been thoroughly dominated by scientific-technical criteria. It isin terms of the submergence of the moral-practical andaesthetic-expressive-and their possible reemergence-that Habermas interprets the appearance of post-material values and new social movements.37In the present context, the task is to show how reasons for a principle ofconstraint on pluralism can be generated by contextualizing it within such ageneral interpretation of modernity. Here I will only try to suggest a broadsketch of how such an account might be put together. The key lies inconsidering how aesthetic-expressive concerns might extend moral-practicalor normative ones in such a way that we could see how a principle likeWalzer's or Lyotard's would contribute to a more enriched, less frustratingway of living in contemporary society, with its dominant pressures ofrationalization. In this sense the appeal would be to the value of a mode of lifemaking more balanced use of the cultural potential of modernity.


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Praxis International 315When one interpretsWalzer's or Lyotard's principles in a strictly normativeor juridical sense, they appear as practical obligations of respect andtoleration, guaranteeing some minimal space to others and their forms of life.In support of such a principle one might bring to bear some variant of

post-conventional ethics. For a number of reasons I would contend thatcommunicative ethics offers the most persuasive case in this regard. 38 But thatis not the particular claim that I want to make here. No post-conventionalethics can alone provide adequate reasons for constrained pluralism. Such anethics teaches, following J.S. Mill, that one ought to tolerate diversityhowever much that disposition is likely to feel "unnatural." This is a crucialminimal justification. However, I want to suggest that pluralism in apostmodern context can perhaps make use of a new sort of reason, born of theexperience of one-sidedness that Habermas and others have been trying toarticulate.If they are right about the depth of this experience in contemporary life,then it may be that, against the background of societal rationalization,diversity may gain a new attractiveness as we seek to enhance the aestheticexpressive dimension. This would mean that along with our moral convictionabout the duty of tolerance there might emerge an increasing sense of pleasureand delight in experiencing diversity. This sense is crucial for the sort of newpluralism I have been discussing. The reason is that toleration alone is not anadequate defense of otherness against the subtle processes of advancingrationalization in an informationalizing society. Newness, or the potential forotherness, in authentic manifestations, needs not only to be tolerated but

actually fostered. Only normative reasons which are mutually enriched byaesthetic-expressive ones will be adequate to this task. 39 And only then will ageneral principle for constraining pluralism be comprehended in its full sense.CV) Specific ConstraintsEven if a general principle of pluralism can be supported in the way I havesuggested, that still leaves one with the problem of constraint on a moreconcrete level. This is the case simply because a general prescription to respectand foster diversity provides little guidance in specific situations, in whichdifferent spheres or forms of life come into conflict. When such conflictactually arises, one needs more direction of a specifically normative orjuridical character. In such cases Walzer correctly suggests that justice"requires that the society be faithful to the disagreements." The question,however, is how one does this, because being faithful here requires managingthe disagreement from the perspective of some normative standpoint.Certainly part of this standpoint will follow from the general principle ofconstraint; that is, a commitment to pluralism will require that just resolutions give some communicative and institutional space to each side. Thus

Walzer speaks of resolving conflicts in ways which provide "alternativedistributions."4o But assertions such as this need to be further developed ifthey are to provide the necessary degree of normative direction.My point can be made as follows. One might envision a spectrum of


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316 Praxis Internationalpossibilities for such direction, ranging from determinate, substantive positions to ones which would look primarily to free, contractual resolution ofdisagreements. The new pluralist justice has forsaken the former option; andthe question is how far it goes toward the latter. Walzer really does notconfront this question, although some critics have tried to show that hisposition actually implies more normative standards than he admits. 41Lyotard, on the other hand, explicitly endorses the perspective of free,flexible, contractual arrangements.42 Presumably, he thinks that such aprocess will, within the horizon of multiplicity, provide the most just way ofmanaging conflicts, since it operates to maintain maximum freedom fordiverse forms of life. But Lyotard is also a little ambivalent about theendorsement he gives to contractual arrangements. He suggests rather vaguelythat such arrangements may also contribute to advancing societal rationalization by providing a systemically non-distruptive form of conflict resolution.43Although Lyotard thus sees reason to be cautious about his own endorsementof contract, I would contend that the problem with contracts is both morespecific and more serious than he realizes.When an unqualified endorsement is given to contractual arrangements atthis level of normative analysis, it generates a thorough blindness to thestructural inequalities which are reproduced in processes of societal rationalization. 44 The freedom of participants in contractual negotiations (whichpresumably is what attracts Lyotard) is always problematic until one hasnormatively evaluated the degree of inequality existing between the participants. Otherwise one blindly endorses even the Hobbesian contract in whichthe first party freely agrees to give up his wallet in return for the second partyagreeing not to shoot him.Lyotard's failure to articulate a normative standpoint which even raises thisproblem is a serious shortcoming in his account of justice. The difficulty onemust face is how to keep this problem visible, without at the same timebuilding into one's standpoint a determinate account of equality that would inturn exceed the limits of a pluralist perspective. What is necessary is aperspective which functions analogously to Foucault's analysis of inconspicuous forms of power in informational society. His analysis continually drawsattention to ways in which psychological and social processes may bedisempowering us, but it offers no substantive normative perspective fromwhich one can decide these issues once and for all.Communicative ethics could perform a similar function in relation to thespecific problem of "free" agreements in the context of structural inequalities.Critical theory has often been called a "hermeneutics of suspicion," because itcontinually seeks to expose such contexts. But too often critics have suspectedthat behind this suspicion there lurks a full blown counter-agenda specifyingthe precise shape of the good society. I have tried to show elsewhere that thisis simply an incorrect interpretation of communicative ethics.45 In the notionof an ideal speech situation there is certainly a fundamental endorsement ofequality, but it extends only so far as is necessary to provide space for subjectsto reflect critically upon their social and political arrangements.46 Such anendorsement of equality thus cannot ever vouchsafe in advance an une-


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Praxis International 317quivocal judgment that the degree of inequality in any given institution isunjust. And if this is so, then communicative ethics has the characteristicsnecessary to address the problem over which Lyotard stumbles.(VI) ConclusionPolitical theorists have recently begun feeling their way toward a newpluralist account of justice, a task made imperative by the death of thosemetanarratives that previously sustained traditional approaches to justice.This task can take on a clearer character if it is informed not just by the deathof metanarratives, but also by reflection upon the other phenomena I haveidentified here as constituting the postmodern problematic. A shift of this sortcan extend in new ways the focus-already expressed in an account such asWalzer's-on "listening" and sensitivity to the boundaries of diverse spheres

of social meaning. And it can do so in ways which do not radically departfrom, but rather build upon and enrich the most reflective moral judgments ofmodern subjects.NOTES

1. Cf., for example, Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting(New York: Basic Books, 1973); Mark Poster, Foucault, Marxism and History: Mode of Productionversus Mode of Information (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984); Timothy W. Luke, "Informationalismand Ecology," Telos 56 (Summer 1983); and Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

2. When I speak of "postmodern theorists" in this paper, I will be referring to a varied set of thinkers.What links them together for my purposes is not a set of common ideas, but rather their sustainedreflection upon the problematic I identify.3. Lyotard, p. xxiv.4. Included within the category of "post-metaphysical" would be philosophers such as Heidegger,Gadamer, Foucault, Oakeshott and Rorty.5. Lyotard, p. 27.6. Lyotard, pp. 66--67; and Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikatives Handelns: Zur Kritik der

functionalistischen Vernunft, Vol II. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 571-73; and Luke, "Informationalism and Ecology."7. Cf. Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1984), Chapter Ten.8. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (NewYork: Random House, 1977), pp. 170, 182-84,208-09,222, 224); The History ofSexuality, Volume One: An Introduction (New York: Random House, 1980),Part Five; Habermas, Theorie des kommunikatives Handelns, Chapter Eight; and Lyotard, Postmodern

Condition, pp. 47-67.9. On "new social movements," see the special issue of Social Research on this topic, especially the articleby Jean Cohen, "Strategy or Identity: New Theorectical Paradigms and Contemporary SocialMovements," Social Research 52 (Winter 1985), pp. 663-716. On "post-materialist" values, seeRonald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

10. Habermas, "New Social movements," Telos 49 (Fall 1981), pp. 33-37.11. Foucault, History of Sexuality, pp. 95-96; Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: ZwolfVorlesungen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), pp. 418-19; 422-24; Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, p.xxiv; and Theodore Mills Norton, "Line of Flight: Gilles Deleuze, or Political Science Fiction," J.VewPolitical Science 15 (Summer 1985), pp. 77-93.


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318 Praxis International12. Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books,1983); and Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1985).13. Walzer, pp. xiv, 4,312-315; and LyotardJust Gaming, pp. 58-59, 71-72, 87-88.14. Stephen K. White, "Post-Structuralism and Political Reflection," Political Theory (forthcoming).15. Walzer, pp. xviii and passim.16. Walzer, pp. 315-17.17. Foucault, Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality.18. Cf. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikatives Handelns, pp. 481-83, 521-22; and Kathy Ferguson, The

Feminist Case against Bureaucracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), pp. 59-79.19. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Edited by Guenther Roth andClaus Wittich. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).19a. Religious fundamentalist groups may be more susceptible to Weberian analysis in terms of thecharismatic authority of television evangelists. Cf. Timothy W. Luke, "From Fundamentalism toTelevangelism," Telos 58 (Winter 1983-84). They also could be separated from other new socialmovements on the grounds that they tend to be intolerant of diversity in forms of life.20. See, for example, Foucault, "On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview ofWork in Progress," in Paul

Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 343. On Habermas, see ChapterFive of my The Recent Work of Jurgen Habermas: Reason, Justice and Modernity (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1987). Lyotard has not explicitly discussed new social movements, butthe direction of his thought would seem strongly supportive of them.21. Foucault, "Politics and Ethics" in The Foucault Reader, pp. 373-80.22. To anyone familiar with Lyotard, my linking of him with Habermas will seem to manifest anegregious misunderstanding. For Lyotard's thinking about justice is explicitly defined as taking aposition in opposition to Habermas. The latter, according to Lyotard, constructs his discourse aroundthe idea of consensus, a strategy that inevitably devalues dissensus, multiplicity, otherness; in short,openness to the unknown. (Postmodern Condition, pp. xxv; 60--65). This interpretation, althoughcommon, is fundamentally incorrect, a fact I have tried to demonstrate elsewhere. (Chapter Four, The

Recent Work of Habermas). There are certainly important differences between the normativeorientations of Habermas and Lyotard, but Habermas' is not as corrosive of otherness as Lyotardimplies.23. Frederic Jameson incorrectly lumps Lyotard together with other post-structuralists who seek only toelucidate some strategy for "surviving under capitalism." ("Forward" to Postmodern Condition, p.xviii). This seems to me to overlook the clear implications ofJust Gaming, originally published in thesame year as The Postmodern Condition.24. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, p. 67; Just Gaming, p. 100.25. Walzer, Spheres ofJustice, p. 313.26. Cf. Timothy W. Luke and Stephen K. White, "Critical Theory, the Informational Revolution and anEcological Path to Modernity" in John Forester, ed., Critical Theory and Public Life (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1985), pp. 22-53.27. Nancy Fraser, "Toward a Discourse Ethic of Solidarity,"Praxis InternationalVol5 (January 1986), p.425.28. Walzer, p. 10.29. Walzer, pp. xii, 314.30. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, pp. 43, 60-61.31. Lyotard, pp. 59-60.32. Lyotard, Just Gaming, pp. 46-47, 73 ff.33. Lyotard, pp. 59, 87.34. Cf. Plato, The Republic, 586 b.35. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society(Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), pp. 183, 239-40.36. Ibid.37. Habermas, Theorie des kommunicatives Handelns, pp. 420 ff.38. See Chapters Three and Four of my The Recent Work ofJurgen Habermas.39. An aesthetic-expressive rationale cannot, by itself, provide the necessary perspective, as Lyotardacknowledges (Just Gaming, p. 90).


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Praxis International 31940. Walzer, Spheres ofJustice, p. 313.41. Lyle A. Downing and Robert B. Thigpen, "Beyond Shared Understandings," Political Theory 14(August 1986), pp. 45fr-57.42. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, p. 66.43. Ibid.44. Cf. my "Habermas' Communicative Ethics and the Development of Moral Consciousness,"Philosophy and Social Criticism 10 (Fall 1984), pp. 41-42; and Seyla Benhabib, "Epistemologies ofPostmodernism: ARejoinder to Jean-Francois Lyotard," New German Critique 33 (Fall 1984), p. 124.45. See Chapter Four of The Recent Work ofJurgen Habermas.46. This particular way of endorsing equality finds its justification in the context of Habermas' generalinterpretation of the cultural potential of modernity.

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3.7 - White, Stephen K. - Justice and the Postmodern Problematic (en)

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