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  • Habit, Reason, and the Limits of Normativity
  • Simon Lumsden (bio)

In recent years one of the views that has risen to prominence in both analytic and continental philosophy is the idea of the fundamental sociality of reason. This socialized reason is presented as both the condition for and the context in which all norms are framed. Of course 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 the rationality of this social sphere assumes a public domain supported by liberal social and political institutions that provide the 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 the "logical space of reasons," a social space for "the giving and asking for reasons".

The great social and legislative advances in the 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 the 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 the 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 the values we hold ourselves and others to. This project is a highly rationalized version of the Aristotelian view of humans as distinctly and exclusively political animals. The way these "political animals" that inhabit this space of reasons are conceived emphasizes the 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 [End Page 188] fundamentally social share a conception of human beings as reflective subjects, who by virtue of this attribute are distinguished from nature and from animals.

What I want to argue here is not that the kind of normative theory that emphasizes the sociality of reason and the self-determination of norms is wrong, but rather that the way they conceive the creation and authorization of norms is underwritten by a very traditional division between nature and reason that leaves humans exclusively on the rational side and animals on the other. By presenting habit as an alternative to the highly deliberative and reflective view of norm formation, we can undercut and problematize the rigidity of the division between rational man and irrational nature, and create a common ground between humans and nonhuman animals, since habit is neither purely rational nor natural, but is a comprehensive way of experiencing the world that we share with animals.

The role of habit in the development, adoption and adherence to norms is largely ignored across the spectrum of normative theory, from contemporary Kantians like Christine Korsgaard to Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom. Their focus on the reflective, intersubjectively negotiated and highly rationalistic determination of norms leaves unexplained why so many of our values and practices appear to have a different origin from practices of giving and requesting reasons, explicit commitments, and so on. Moreover, many of the norms embedded in our everyday practices remain largely immune to rational debates and even to our explicit commitments. Re-asserting the importance of habit in human self-identity both shows the anthropocentricism that defines much normative theory and also provides a way to help refocus the human-animal relation precisely because habit itself is a central aspect of human life that occupies a space between spirit and nature that we share with animals. Despite what are sometimes the good intentions of this type of theory, by for example extending rights to animals and demanding the acknowledgement of nonhuman animal...

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