Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

358
A Neo-pragmatist Approach to Intercultural Dialogue and Cosmopolitan Democracy: a discursive … - Fabrizio Trifiro
practices of right and wrong. It cannot be applied
meaningfully to whole practices of justification, for, on the
anti-foundationalist view, there is no other reality or
standard of justification to resort to in our attempts at
proving the truth of our overall normative settings than the
very one conveyed by our whole set of normative
standards and justificatory practices itself.
From this epistemic ethnocentric consideration,
however, we should not be misled to conclude that we
cannot endorse a self-reflexive stance toward our current
normative settings, and thus that we are trapped within our
normative traditions. According to the anti-foundationalist
predicament we surely can reform and change our
practices of justification in any of their part whenever there
is need to, but like the seamen on Neurath’s boat, only
afloat and piecemeal, always having to stand on some part
of it in order not to sink into unintelligibility (Neurath 1959).
In this way, through a continuous process of piecemeal
reform, we might even end up within a normative
standpoint fundamentally different from the one we started
with. But, still, we will be making our normative judgements
from within a particular, ultimately circular, practice of
justification.
The transcendence of normative validity, then,
amounts to the self-reflexive use of our critical faculties.
This self-reflexivity, however, cannot make us transcend
the whole set of values and beliefs that at any point in time
constitutes our normative way to look at and behave in the
world, for, as Putnam insists, even though ‘traditions can
be criticized’ “talk of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in any area
only makes sense against the background of an inherited
tradition” (ibid).
2.2. Political viability
Critics of such an ethnocentric universalistic and immanent
transcendentalist epistemology at this point usually turn
from the charge of relativism to that of ethnocentrism. With
this charge they intend to accuse anti-foundationalism
either for closing the doors to inter-cultural dialogue or
opening them to any kind of oppressive and illiberal
conduct. It is their conviction that the above ethnocentric
defence of an anti-foundationalist epistemology, even if
were capable to save our critical faculties from the selfstultifying
consequences of radical scepticism and
relativism, would condemn us to the worrisome and
threatening situation in which everyone would be and feel
so entrenched in their points of view and traditions that, at
best, they will arrogantly remain deaf to the voices of the
‘other’ and, at worst, they will aggressively try to impose on
others their own views and practices.
This critique, however, is misplaced as it rests on a
crucial confusion between epistemic and moral
ethnocentrism. It is intended to be a moral critique of a
certain attitude one may have towards oneself and the
others, while the ethnocentric dimension highlighted by
anti-foundationalism is exclusively of an epistemological
order, and as such it remains silent on the normative
directions we should follow in our relations with the others
and ourselves. The recognition of the inexorable circularity
of our justificatory practices has, in fact, no moral and
political significance. Anti-foundationalism is a metanormative
view, a view about the epistemic status of our
justificatory practices, about how we justify our normative
stances, and as such does not entail any substantial
normative commitment.
As Rorty and Putnam reminded us, there is no
reason why the rejection of metaphysical transcendence
and universality should condemn us either to live in
‘individualist [or cultural] solipsistic hells’ (Putnam 1981:
216) ‘trapped within our monad or our language’ (Rorty
1991b: 204) or to be ‘viciously ethnocentric’ (Rorty, 1991b,
p.208) in our relations with our fellow human beings,
preventing us from being able ‘to engage in a truly human
dialogue’ (Putnam 1981: 216). In particular, antifoundationalism,
by claiming that we cannot avoid being
ethnocentric in our justificatory practices, does not deprive
us of the possibility, the choice, to endorse a critical stance
towards our own points of view and traditions, do our best
to overcome a situation of deaf assertion and counterassertion,
open ourselves to other cultures, and commit
ourselves to civil practices of conflict resolution that
respect everyone’s freedom and equality. It only highlights
the moral and political dimension of this choice, showing
that it has nothing to do with our epistemological or
ontological views, but only with our moral, sensibilities,
stances and commitments.
So far, of course, I have not put forth a definitive
argument in favour of anti-foundationalism. I have only
shown that an anti-foundationalist conception of
normativity such as that put forth by Rorty and Putnam is
epistemically and politically viable. Indeed it was part of
our argument that a coherent anti-foundationalism should
not be expected to present justifications proving its
absolute validity. However, I believe to be possible to
formulate an argument in its favour in terms of its
desirability for liberal democratic morality and politics. I will
maintain that there are good reasons to believe that the
spreading of anti-foundationalist awareness would
facilitate the fuller realization of the liberal democratic
project, at all levels of governance. It is time then to outline
my view of the normative core of a genuine liberal
democracy.
3. The normative core of liberal democracy
The liberal democratic tradition cannot be considered the
expression of a clearly defined project characterised by a
precise and unquestioned set of values, principles,
practices and institutions. There has always been
disagreement amongst its supporters on the defining
characteristics of its political and moral project, on the
content and relative priority of its central values of freedom
and equality, as well as on the form of the practices and
institutions that should implement them. So we should
expect any particular view of the liberal democratic project
to be the expression of a prior normative stance.
My reading of its normative core starts from the
appreciation of the equal worth of all human beings, and,
following a strand in liberal theory tracing back to
Immanuel Kant (1964), from a conception of human dignity
centred on people’s capability to autonomously confer
worth to and pursue alternative life projects. Considering
that the exercise of individual autonomy so conceived
requires the material, social and institutional pre-conditions
for both the exercise of one’s freedom of choice and action
and the capacity to shape the circumstances affecting
one’s own context of choice and action we are led to the
affirmation of familiar civil, social, and political rights.
The appreciation of individual autonomy as a
fundamental human right, in fact, on the one side, leads us
to claim the universal right to the necessary material and
social conditions for successful autonomous agency, such
as a certain amount of well-being and freedom (Gewirth
1978). On the other side, it leads us to the deliberative
democratic principle of political legitimacy according to