Habit, Reason, and the Limits of Normativity

Abstract

not everything can be a norm in this sense; for something to count as a reason it must be able to be recognized as a reason by our interlocutors and be something that we can individually and collectively commit ourselves to?that is, give reasons for. This view of normativity and rationality of this social sphere assumes a public domain supported by liberal social and institutions that provide kind of deliberative social conditions by which what can count as a reason to act or as a justification can be seen to be collectively sanctioned. The whole social sphere so conceived is logical space of reasons, a social space for the giving and asking for reasons. The great social and legislative advances in twentieth century that have challenged racism, sexual discrimination, labor conditions and so on are all testimony to how this space of reasons can operate. What gets argued out in public and changes that those debates have effected filter into generally accepted norms, and as a consequence, what can count, for example, as a good reason for not employing someone could not (in all but most exceptional circumstances) be justified by appeal to ethnicity, gender or sexual preference. Seeing our values as fundamentally rational and socially situated and sanctioned in this way is a very useful way of presenting us as collectively self-determining subjects. This view presents us as collectively responsible for values we hold ourselves and others to. This project is a highly rationalized version of Aristotelian view of humans as distinctly and exclusively animals. The way these political animals that inhabit this space of reasons are conceived emphasizes self-determined character of humanity in a far more radical way than did Aristotle. Nevertheless, Aristotle and these recent figures who conceive reason to be