Ilf
I
Goods and life-forms
Relativism in Charles Taylor’s
political philosophy
Hartmut Rosa
John Gunnell, in a recent paper in Political Theory. I
want to turn first to Taylor’s ideas about the nature of
argues that a concern with the problem or threat of
human
agency
and
identity
and
the
central
relativism is a, or even the, central structuring theme of
exemplification of these in his analysis of modernity. I
contemporary political and social philosophy. It is the
will then go on to articulate my critique of Taylor’s
common element of approaches as different as the
conception of practical reason and of our alleged
Critical Theory of, say, Habermas, the postmodernism
obligation to adopt the goods of modernity. In the last,
of Rorty or Foucault, liberal ideas such as those of
short part of this paper, I will offer a brief, rather
Dworkin or Rawls, or more communitarian approaches
preliminary suggestion of my own about how to cope
such as the one advocated by Charles Taylor. Of course,
analytically with the problems of cultural and ethical
not all of these authors are equally critical of any
difference and change.
relativistic implications in their theories or equally
anxious categorically to rule out any such consequences
from them. On the contrary, for many commentators the
ideas of Rorty or Foucault are plainly historicist and
relativist. However, virtually no author, not even
someone like Peter Winch, would openly accept for himor herself the label of relativism. They all shy away from
this term as if it referred to something like rabies.
Forms of life and modernity
A recurrent theme in almost all of Taylor’ s writings is
his objection to all kinds of ‘naturalist’ positions which
hold that human agents and/or human societies or forms
of life can be analyzed from a disengaged, or
ol~iective,
perspective, that is, from a neutral observer’s stance
which is independent from the point of view of
By contrast, Charles Taylor, on whom this paper will
focus, considers himself as an outright anti-relativist, and
he directs quite a substantial amount of his thinking and
participants. The crudest forms of naturalism are those
which we see in scientific approaches such as
behaviourism or empirical positivism. However,
writing towards refuting what he calls (relativist) Neo-
naturalist ideas also guide attempts to analyze the
Nietzschean thinking, particularly of the Foucauldian
predicament of modernity from an ({cultural perspective.
brand. I want to argue in this paper that, contrary to
The distinction between cultural and acultural analyses
Taylor’s intentions, and apparently quite unnoticed by
of modernity has recently been taken up again by Taylor
him,
that
in his ‘Modernity and the Rise of the Public Sphere’.1 It
reintroduce the problem of relativism more radically and
is of great help for the clarification of his standpoint.
pressingly than do most of the other contemporary
Cultural approaches set out to compare the life-form of
his
philosophy
entails
consequences
theories. In opposition to an argument made recently by
modernity as just one amongst many possible cultural
James Bohman,2 according to which Taylor has moved
forms with other, particularly pre-modern, forms of life.
over time from an early, more relati vist position to a more
The idea of a form of life thereby follows Wittgenstein in
value-objective or realist position in his recent writings,
that it focuses strongly on the linguistic constitution of
I will argue here that Taylor has not really changed his
culture and personal identity. Inherent in the institutions
view over time (except perhaps for some change in
and practices of every life-form is a distinct, specific
emphasis). The crucial point is rather an inconsistency
view of the essence and nature of the world, of the
between Taylor’ s fundamental project of a philosophical
position and function of the individual in society and the
anthropology – which in a broader sense includes his
world writ large, of the best or just ordering of the
methodological writings – and his conception of practical
community, of the good life for the individual and of the
reason. In order to bring out this problem to the full, I
common good, of what constitutes real or solid
20
Radical Philosophy 71
(May/June
1995)
knowledge and so on.
of human knowledge are such that they indispensably
By contrast, acultural explanations assume that the
central
developments
of
modernity,
such
as
require the self-definition of human subjects against a
solid background of values
and meanings (or
secularization, the rise of instrumental reason, the
significances). This background is linguistically and
distinction between facts and values, different processes
intersubjectively constituted, but within a specific life-
of rationalization etc. are universal developments which
form it is necessarily taken as an ontological given. In
could in principle occur in any traditional culture, or
other words, human agency, identity and knowledge are
which in fact inevitably will occur in every traditional
unthinkable
culture since they enable man to master and use his
acceptance of some final and ultimate or highest goods.
without
the
shared,
intersubjective
natural environment and achieve his ends most
‘However understood, the notion of a human identity
effectively. Now the problem with such an acultural
without such a sense brings us close to the unimaginable
account of modernity is that it fails to realize that the
limit of total breakdown’, Taylor writes in his article on
originally
scient~fic
ideal of disengagement, i.e.
modernityO and this is also one of the central insights in
naturalism, has in the course of the development of
his Sources of the Se(f. 7 At the same time, our
modernity been turned into an overall form or way of
relationships with our fellows and the community we live
life. This is why acultural theorists think they discover
in cannot be of a purely instrumental character but must
human universals when in fact they explore just one
be viewed as constitutive of our identity. ‘We can only
particular life-form.4 The modern individual is thus
define ourselves in exchange with others, those who
interpreted, and views herself, as the isolated, disengaged
bring us up, and those whose society we come to see as
individual who is opposed to a neutral universe which
constitutive of our identity.’x While these two points –
stands at his or her disposal. Acultural accounts of
the constitutive roles of goods and of community –
modernity hold that such a view ofthe individual as homo
oeconomicus and equal rights bearer is the natural
consequence of the crumbling of false metaphysical and
religious beliefs and myths. Once these are rejected, we
find that matters of values and of acceptable grounds for
association with others in society cannot be taken from
the larger order of the universe, or a chain of being or
something comparable. According to the naturalist view,
no conception of the good or the valuable, or of the good
life, can be derived from the way the world is or can be
rationally defended, and our relationship to our fellows
or the community can only be conceived of in
instrumental terms, as is exemplified, for example, in
contractual theories.
From the insight that all horizons of significance and
value have to be set by ourselves, from within ourselves,
represent the central themes around which Taylor’s
thinking evolves and which instruct his multifaceted
methodological, political and ethical writings, they can
only be understood in the larger context of his
(hermeneutical) philosophical anthropology, which I
want to explore a bit further now before returning to the
issue of modernity.
Philosophical anthropology: self·
interpretation and strong evaluation
Taylor’s philosophical anthropology, which centres
around his philosophy of agency and identity, is based
on two core concepts which are a view of man as self
interpreting animal and as a strong evaluator.
Early on in his writings Taylor comes up with the
it follows inevitably that there is a plurality of possible
idea that man is a self-interpreting animal. 9 He does not
perspectives on life and that all horizons of significance,
just mean by that that human beings are always forced to
and therefore of identity, can be challenged and
interpret and evaluate themselves and their environment.
relativized or can be genealogically explained away.
Rather he wants to say that there is nothing like a human
Consequently, it seems that all matters of value and of
self or identity or society outside or prior to such a self-
truth can ultimately be reduced to questions of power,
interpretation. Social reality and personal identity only
and different forms of life appear to be distinguishable
are what they are in virtue of endorsed self-
only with reference to power-structures.) Accordingly,
interpretations. Hence self-interpretation is constitutive
most of the distinct modern conceptions of morality, of
of human identity and society in a very fundamental way.
political institutions and of science strive to be neutral
That is what on the methodological plain accounts for
towards questions of the good. Now in the view of
Taylor’s angry opposition to all kinds of behaviourist or
Charles Taylor, all this is based on a fundamental
empiricist approaches in the human sciences which try
confusion and misunderstanding of the nature of human
to explain human behaviour without recourse to the
existence and of society. For the transcendental
agents’ self-understandings. Meaningful scientific
conditions of human agency and identity and ultimately
explanation for him indispensably requires the
21
incorporation of the agent’s self-interpretation (this is
evaluative frameworks which implicitly contain an
expressed in the Best-Account-Principle). Thereby it is
ontological account of what ‘really matters’. For Taylor,
beyond doubt for Taylor that self-interpretations are not
human agency and personal identity as well as human
achieved monologically. For the available patterns of
community are inconceivable outside such horizons of
interpretation (and with them the possible contents of
significance or evaluative frameworks. IS
experience) are always encoded in language. As such
they are a shared social possession and they are
intersubjectively conveyed. Furthermore, the ensuing
patterns of significance are quite literally manifested or
materialized in the predominant social institutions and
practices as intersubjective and common meanings. lo
Now it is crucial for Taylor’s view of human selfand world-interpretations that these always have to be
based on what he calls strong evaluations. ‘Our selfunderstanding essentially incorporates our seeing
Consequences for the analysis of
modernity
Now it seems clear for Taylor that different cultures,
languages and life-forms contain different moral maps
or evaluative frameworks and consequently live within
different horizons of significance. (This is why, in my
view, Taylor should not be seen as a moral realist. In).
And since all ofthese frameworks implicitly or explicitly
ourselves against a background of what I have called
must contain some conception of the relevant
strong evaluation. I mean by that a background of
distinctions between things which are recognized as of
categoric or unconditioned or higher importance or
worth, and things which lack this or are of lesser value’ ,
he defines in the introduction to his Philosophical
Papers. I I With this concept of strong evaluation Taylor
is drawing on an idea of Harry Frankfurt, who advocated
the view that persons are the only beings capable of
developing ‘second order desires’, that is to say the only
beings who can or must morally evaluate their own
desires and needs and judge them as desired or
undesired. 12 However, Taylor strongly insists on the
point that these second order volitions are not just desires,
but reasoned evaluations or judgements. But we can only
make such judgements if we take some intrinsically
valuable goods (which direct these strong evaluations)
as ontological givens. This we must do by transcendental
necessity, for otherwise we cannot establish the
hypergoods or constitutive goods which inspire and
necessary distance and independence towards our first
order desires and needs. 13
The anthropological argument that we cannot but
motivate human agency within such a life-form, and with
recourse to which conflicts between incompatible life
goods are resolved,17 it follows necessarily that
modernity as a life-form must contain such an evaluative
framework and hypergood conception as well. And the
hypergoods which motivate and constitute us moderns
must inspire our moral and scientific visions as well, no
matter how hard we try to achieve neutrality with respect
to the question of the good. This is why Taylor in almost
all of his writings (apart from the early, strictly
methodological ones) is concerned with uncovering the
motives behind the theories and practices which are
distinct from the modern ‘naturalist’ life-form. Thus he
tries to uncover or identify in a host of articles the
motives or the ideals or goods which inspire and guide
procedural ethics IX and utilitarianism,19 political
liberalism, individualism and atomism,20 scientific
behaviourism 21 and so on.
He thinks that at the fundamental root of all these
theories and practices which together could be said to
make strong evaluations rests on Taylor’s idea that the
determine the naturalist life-form lie the hypergoods of
self, by anthropological necessity, finds itself placed in a
disengaged reason (respectively disengaged identity,
multidimensional moral space in which subjects have to
radical autonomy or freedom and instrumental
orient and define themselves quite in analogy to physical
rationality) which go together with the affirmation of
space. More detailed, we have to define ourselves in
ordinary life. Now the central problem of naturalism for
relation to our fellow human beings, with respect to a
Taylor lies in the fact that the ideals of disengagement
conception of the good life, and with respect to our own
and radical autonomy in the last resort force us with
status or dignity in this moral space. 1-1 In order to define
epistemological necessity radically to deny any
our own standpoint and sense of direction in moral space,
dependence on these very ideals. For dependence on any
we need a kind of moral map that defines the horizons of
constitutive good entails engagement, the loss of
the important and the unimportant, the good and the bad,
neutrality and the end of full autonomy. But this urge to
the beautiful and noble, as well as the ugly and mean etc.
deny the effective and constitutive goods in the long run
Hence, we all are by anthropological necessity equipped
endangers and eventually destroys the very goods and
with such a moral map from which we read off our strong
the derivative vision of the good life that lie at the heart
evaluations. Moral maps are thus substantive ethical or
of the naturalist form of life, since a good which is not
22
recognized, but denied, cannot be motivating and
nationalism can in part be explained as romantic protests
inspiring and action-guiding; in short, it loses its status
against the dominant naturalist ideologyY Nevertheless
as a moral source. Thus, Taylor feels that one of the
he hopes that the different goods involved will in the end
dangers of modernity and the main source of the malaise
turn out to be combinable and simultaneously realizable.
ofmodernity~2
might be that naturalism could turn out to
However, I do not want to go into this in depth; rather
be merely parasitic and in the long run self-destructive.
I want to put into question the status of these goods that
It depends on prior moral goods (which originally have
Taylor invokes. In particular, the question arises about
Christian roots), but it cannot recognize these goods as
how far, if at all, these goods are identifiable with the
effective moral sources. At the same time it is incapable
good per se. Or, put differently, is there any good in
of creating new visions of the goodY
pursuing these particular goods or are they just the
However, this does not mean for Taylor that the
contingent outcome of innumerable ideological conflicts
project of modernity is lost. Quite to the contrary, he is
and manoeuvres which are ultimately bound up with
rather optimistic on the positive potentialities of our
predicament. This optimism is supported by two main
struggles of interest and power, as Quentin Skinner
critically argues against Taylor?2X
pillars. In the first place, he thinks that all we need to do
is to recover and regain our fundamental constitutive
goods as effective moral sources. This, he thinks, can
Goods and the good: the dilemma of
practical reason
best be done by trying to articulate them as fully as
possible, for only articulated goods can be truly
Skinner’s critique closely resembles Michel Foucault’s
motivating and can constitute identity, which in turn
arguments, as put forward, for example, in ‘Nietzsche,
explains Taylor’s emphasis on issues of articulation.
Genealogy, History: ‘To follow the complex course of
Since these moral sources are already out there in our
descent is .. , to identify the accidents, the minute
culture, all we have to do is to resist the misguided
deviations – or conversely, the complete reversals – the
epistemological urge to deny their recognition. This urge
errors, the false appraisals, and the faulty calculations
that gave birth to those things that continue to exist and
only arises when some goods, such as autonomy, are one-
central aspirations of this paradigm is the overcoming of
have value for us; it is to discover that truth or being does
not lie at the root of what we know and what we are, but
the exteriority of accidents.’29 Against thi~, Charles
Taylor, in my view, has a clear tendency to conflate the
cultural goods with the good per se and to account for
historical change in terms of progress and moral growth
etc. 30 The reason for that might be on the one hand his
Hegelian vein and on the other the fact that, as I have
tried to show, his very anthropology demands of us that
we take our goods as ontological givens. At the same
time, Taylor defends a conception of practical reason
which holds that it is possible to judge or evaluate
the naturalist dualisms between mind and body,
different conceptions of the good or different ethical
sidedly taken to the extreme and pursued exclusively.24
In order to avoid such a catastrophic one-sidedness, it
will greatly help us that the goods of naturalism are not
the only ones effective in modern Western society. Quite
to the contrary, Taylor insists that there is a wholly
different ‘rival paradigm’ which he calls romantic
expressivism and which is the second pillar of his
optimism. By this he means a set of ideas and ideals
which, following Herder and the Romantics, centres
around the hypergoods of authenticity, creativity, and
expressive fulfilment or expressive unity. One of the
indi vidual and society or cosmos, spirit and nature and
positions and to show, for example, that one form of life
Taylor argues that in our aspirations and ideas
or individual moral standpoint is superior to another one.
about our private lives (e.g. in our family lives, love
This is the essence of Taylor’s article ‘Explanation and
so on.
25
relationships or ideas about art) we are all pretty much
Practical Reason’ .31 He tries to show there that, although
romantic expressivists striving for authentic self-
we cannot know whether an ethical standpoint or a moral
fulfilment, whereas in our public or political practices
and ideas we are naturalists. 26 Furthermore, he thinks that
judgements, we can still judge, for example, one position
position is ultimately right, i.e. we can’t make apodeictic
quite a substantial part of the earlier, theistic set of goods
B as superior to a different position A if we can give a
has also survived in one form or other. And since these
plausible narrative account of the transition from A to B
three sets of goods are not easily, or may not be at all,
in historical and theoretical terms but not the other way
compatible, most of our political and moral conflicts are
round. In particular, Taylor thinks that we do achieve
the
and
individual or cultural growth when our new position is
expressivism and, to a lesser extent, theism. For example,
more lucid, less self-delusive and truer to our real
he thinks that the Green Movement, Marxism and
feelings, which he now wants to see at least partially
result
of clashes
between
naturalism
23
grounded in human constants, that is, in universal
of his own philosophical anthropology.
anthropological givens. But with this argument, from my
It is obvious that there is little to oppose to Taylor’s
perspective, Taylor falls prey to what can be called the
idea that we, as individuals as well as a community, can
‘fallacy of presentism’ when he – following MacIntyre,2
scrutinize some of our everyday, or superficial, beliefs
– holds that ‘real progress’ or ‘progress towards the truth’
and practices in order to find out whether they are com-
can be identified by the plausibility of the narrative
patible with our sense of the highest goods or with our
reconstruction of the transition from a position (or life-
most fundamental strong evaluations and aspirations.
form) A to a position (or life-form) B. For once this
And we might justly be said to achieve greater self-clar-
transition has been made, it is clear that the language of
ity and growth if we reduce some contradictions, errors,
B and the corresponding conception of the good, which
or inconsistencies between our beliefs and practices and
is embedded in a particular horizon of significance, only
our basic vision of the good or evaluative framework. By
allow for a plausible defence of B, which seems to
doing this, we might indeed acquire a truer sense of ‘what
preserve all the values and achievements of A while
we really are’. But this talk of growth, progress and truth
avoiding its errors and failures. However, it is simply
only makes sense as long as we consistently apply one
mistaken to consider such a parochial narrative of
coherent evaluative framework, or one consistent set of
transition to be a valid meta-narrative.
If on the other hand Taylor wants to claim that the
hypergoods. If we take one such set as our basis, then
different self-interpretations might rightly be judged as
narrative of transition is convincing even for someone
more or less adequate or ‘self-lucid’. But as soon as we
within the horizon and language of A, then this transition
allow for a plurality of ethical frameworks and hyper-
cannot be anything resembling a paradigm-shift in the
good conceptions, the problem of incommensurability
sense of Thomas Kuhn, with whom in fact both Taylor
and hence of relativism reappears.
and MacIntyre are concerned here. For a change which
This is because ethical positions, visions of the goods,
is a veritable improvement from both perspectives is not
are ineradicably bound up with languages, social
a (,revolutionary’) transition between two incommen-
practices and life,.-forms. As Taylor puts it, without
surable paradigms, but a piece of evolutionary progress
appropriate language some goods are not even options.
within a prefixed horizon. Kuhn has been stressing all
Hence, to judge neutrally between two very different life-
along that a paradigm-shift in his sense involves gains as
forms would mean to possess a neutral language, but this
well as losses and, first of all, a radical change in the
is something the possibility of which Taylor alw.ays
standards of measurement, in the range of possible
rejected. Thus, to use an example, although it is not
questions and answers and in the lexical structure of the
altogether clear what exactly Taylor considers to be the
perceived world, such that those within different
most fundamental hypergoods of modernity writ large, if
paradigms literally live ‘in different worlds’ .”
Now the point is that Taylor must defend something
we take, for example, the three elements of modernity
which are identified by Russell Hittinger’:’i in his
like his view of practical reason if he wants to avoid
interpretation of Sources (~fthe Se(fas the decisive moral
relativistic consequences in his theory. And Taylor is
sources of our age, the problem becomes obvious. These
under much greater pressure to reject ethical relativism
three are ‘inwardness’, the affirmation of ‘ordinary life,’
than for example Jiirgen Habermas, since he holds that
and an ‘expressive view of nature’. Now without making
rights are derivative of goods and in this respect refuses
the attempt to explore what these three terms involve in
to distinguish between morals and ethics. Hence he
detail, it immediately springs to mind that apart from
seems to be forced either to defend a kind of ethical
these a variety of other moral sources are conceivable
realism (or strong hermeneutics, as Nick Smith would
and in historically or geographically different cultures
(~f
have it-‘4) or to accept moral relativism. At the same time,
do or did obtain. As Taylor himself shows in Sources
the relativism problem weighs much more for Taylor
the Se(f, it has been a long, gradual historical
than it does for postmodern theorists such as Richard
development with many contingencies which led to this
Rorty. For, contrary to the latter, Taylor does not think
distinct modern world-view or paradigm. Before that,
that we, as human agents and selves, can accept with a
very different horizons of significance or conceptions of
sense of irony the plurality of incompatible goods and
the good life prevailed, which included, for example, the
values and life-forms, since we are forced by
ideals of the monk and a contemplative life or the ideal
transcendental necessity to give an ontological
of a knight which in our modern world no longer make
grounding to what we see as the fundamental goods.
much sense. Thus with the rise of the modern self quite a
Nevertheless, I want to argue that Taylor’ s understanding
lot was lost, for instance the idea of our embeddedness in
of practical reason is untenable when viewed in the light
a meaningful larger order. As Skinner puts it, ‘the march
24
of the modern self ·Ieft a number of casualties lying on
the roadside of history.’ 36
we cannot prove the absolute superiority of one position
Now, Taylor would have to show that the gains are
over another, we can come to find a dimensional
superiority ..~1
greater than the losses, for otherwise our allegiance to
There is no space to go into this in depth here, but it
the modern goods would indeed suffer a serious blow.
seems clear that we can show even in cross-cultural
But against this demand stand his own claim that there is
comparisons that one form of life is superior to another
no acuItural analysis of life-forms and his invocation of
in one or several special dimensions or respects, for
Thomas Kuhn’s idea of (partially) incommensurable
paradigms in this context. 37 One of his central insights is
that subjects only are what they are and social reality
only exists by virtue of the agents’ self-interpretations.
He even stresses over and over again that not only human
goods but also the relevant and important humanfeelings
are at least partially shaped and constituted by language.
Furthermore, they are reshaped and altered by our
attempts to articulate them, and some level of articulacy
example in protecting human rights, or in establishing
is a prerequisite of strong evaluations. But since every
articulation is at the same time one among several
possible interpretations of those feelings or senses of the
good, it becomes ever more clear that life-forms cannot
be evaluatively or comparatively judged in an exhaustive
sense. For if the language and the corresponding social
practices within a culture allow for just one specific set
of feelings and ideas, and if this set may in turn be
reshaped by attempts to further articulate them, then it
simply doesn’t make sense in a cross-cultural
confrontation to ask about who possesses ‘the truer, more
authentic, more illusion-free’ self-interpretation. 3x As
Taylor himself argued in other contexts, there is no
reality outside or independent of these different selfinterpretations. We literally live in different worlds, with
different lexical structures, as the Kuhnians would have
it, and therefore with different goods, feelings and selves.
That is why I think that Taylor’s attempt to have recourse
to some (substantive) universal human constants at this
point is incompatible with his view of man as a
fundamentally open and self-interpreting animal, and
without this recourse, his talk of growth and progress
and ‘truer grasps of the human condition q<) becomes
implausible and unfounded.
Relativism and dimensional
commensurability
It follows from all this that Taylor’s philosophical
anthropology, contrary to his intention, is relativistic in
that it does not allow for talk of growth or superiority of
one ethical position or life-form over another in contexttranscending
terms:~o
But this does not mean that it is
relativistic in the sense that life-forms or ethical positions
cannot be compared at all or that choices between them
cannot be defended with any arguments. For although
socio-economic equality, or maybe with respect to
avoiding
physical
suffering,
or to
saving
the
environmental resources and so on. However, this does
not establish or require an assessment of the relative
importance of these different dimensions. Furthermore,
these dimensions of qualitative contrast should not be
understood as ontological gi vens, and not as human
constants either. They are simply the results of particular
human self-interpretations and views of the world and of
their attempted articulation in the appropriate systems of
discourse. Therefore we cannot simply assume that the
same dimensions of qualitative distinctions, which would
require the same horizons of significance, exist in other
cultures as well. However, as language animals we can
come to explore and learn the significant dimensions that
prevail in the moral maps of other cultures and we can
then go on to develop a language of critical difference 42
which allows for a sort of dimensional commensurability.
The idea here is that with the help of this language of
critical difference we can come to indicate where our
own culture would stand on their(i.e. the other culture’s)
significant dimensions and vice versa. If it then comes to
a choice between rival conceptions, we can perhaps give
an account of the relative gains and losses with one or the
other decision.
To accomplish something like this would not be at all
easy, for cultures are always partially constituted by
language, and to reinterpret them in the light of a
comparative language is always potentially to alter their
character. Dimensional commensurability, therefore,
requires something like a fusion of horizons in the sense
of Gadamer. 43 A comparative judgement made on such a
ground would not have to claim to be contexttranscending, rather it could claim to be made from a
new, comparative context, but it could not avoid
including arbitrary elements in what concerns the
ranking of the established dimensions.
All these ideas, I think, are in one way or other already
present in Taylor’s writings, but they are not explicitly
developed and they get blurred and even blundered by
his desperate attempts to avoid the air of relativism. If
Taylor finally accepted the full implications of his own
theory he would, I think, find that he is much more
Nietzschean than he ever feared in his nightmares. But
25
11/
I
he would also find that this is not the end of our attempts
to make sense of our lives and to struggle for the good.
the good I~le, and more fundamental or higher goods
(hypergoods), which as constitutive goods provide the
standards and measure to judge or evaluate my life-goods.
18. E.g. ‘Die Motive einer Verfahrensethik’ in Moralitat und
Sittlichkeit, ed. by Wolfgang Kuhlmann, Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt, 1986, pp. 101-34.
Notes
I.
‘Relativism. The Return of the Repressed’, Political
Theory 21, 1993, pp. 563-84.
19. See e.g. ‘The Diversity of Goods’, in:Philosophical
Papers, Vol. 11, pp. 230-47.
2.
lames Bohman, New Philosoph.v ol Social Science:
Prohlems olIndeterminac:v, Oxford, 1991, pp. 132ff.
21. Cf. Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, pp. 4f.
3.
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 14, 1993, pp. 20360; cf. ‘Inwardness and the Culture of Modernity’ ,in Axel
Honneth et aI., Zwischenhetrachtungen im Pro::.ess der
Al(/kliirung, Frankfurt, 1989, pp. 601-23.
4.
A similar point has been made by Richard Bernstein, who
stressed the pernicious ideological consequences of such
an approach; cf. his The Restructuring ol Social and
Political Theor.v, New York and London, 1976, p. 106.
5.
This line of thought is retlected in modern philosophies
that lead from Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals and
Weber’s disenchanted universe to Foucault’s relativist
analysis of power regimes.
6.
‘Modernity’ ,The Tanner Lectures, p. 257.
7.
Charles Taylor, Sources ql the Se(j: The Making
Modern Identity, Cambridge, Mass, 1989.
8.
‘Modernity’ ,The Tanner Lectures, p. 257.
9.
See e.g. ‘Interpretation and the Sciences of Man’ (1971)
and ‘Self-Interpreting Animals’ (1977) in Charles Taylor,
Philosophical Papers, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 1985, Vol. IL pp. 15-57, and Vol. I, pp. 45-76;
resp.
(~l
the
10. See ‘Interpretation and the Sciences of Man’, pp. 33f.,
where he writes: ‘The situation we have here is one in
which the vocabulary of a given social dimension is
grounded in the shape of social practice in the dimension;
that is, the vocabulary would not make sense, could not be
applied sensibly, where this range of practices did not
prevail. And yet this range of practices could not exist
without the prevalence of this or some related vocabulary.
There is no simple one-way dependence here. We can
speak of mutual dependence if we like, but really what
this points up is the artificiality of the distinction between
social reality and the language of description of that social
reality. The language is constitutive of the reality, is
essential to its being the kind of reality it is. To separate
the two and distinguish them as we quite rightly
distinguish the heavens from our theories about them is
forever to miss the point.’
20. Cf. ‘Atomism’, in ibid., pp. 187-210.
22. This concept, which at first was the title of his 1991 book
(Ethics (~l Authenticity), provides a kind of red thread
through Taylor’s writings.
23. See e.g. Sources qlthe Se(f, p.517.
24. Cf. ibid., p. 503.
25. See ibid., pp. 368ff. and 495ff., as well as Hegel and
Modern Society, Cambridge, 1979, and ‘Legitimation
Crisis’?’ in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 11, pp. 248-88.
26. The divergence between private and public ideals and
goods naturally entails great dangers of deep alienation
and crises of identity as well as loss of social cohesion,
asHegel already saw.
27. See Hegel and Modern Society, and ‘Legitimation
Crisis’?’.
28. Quentin Skinner, ‘Who Are “We”,? Ambiguities of the
Modern Self ,Inquiry 34, 1990, Symposium on Sources
(~l the SeU: pp. 133-53.
29. In The Foucault Reader, ed. by Paul Rabinow, Pantheon
Books, New York, 1984, p. 81 (emphasis added).
30. Cf. for example his ‘Foucault on Freedom and Truth’, in:
Philosophical Papers, Vol. 11, pp. 152-84, pp. 180ff.
31. In The Quality ql L~le, ed. by M. Nussbaum and A. Sen,
Oxford, pp. 208-31.
32. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the
Philosophy of Science’, in Gary Gutting ed., Paradigms·
and Rel’olutions. Appraisals and Applications (dThomas
Kuhn’s Philosophy ql Science, Notre Dame and London,
1980, pp. 54-74.
33. Cf. Paul Horwich ed., World Changes. Thomas Kuhn and
the Nature (~l Science, Cambridge Mass. and London,
1993.
34. ‘Identity and Difference in Taylor’s Hermeneutics’, paper
given at the Prague Conference on Philosophy and Social
Science in April 1994.
35. Review of Sources (~l the SeU: in Review
44, 1990, pp. 111-30.
(~l Metaphysics
11. Ibid., p. 3.
36. Ambiguities of the Modern Se(f, p. 143.
12. Harry Frankfurt, ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of
a Person’, lournal of Philosophy 67 1971, pp. 5-20.
37. Explanation and Practical Reason, pp. 214ff.
13. This point was stressed at this conference by Maeve Cooke
in her paper on ‘Selthood and Solidarity’ when she argued
that authenticity requires the acceptance of normative
claims that emanate from beyond the self. This is one of
Taylor’s central insights in Ethics of Authenticity.
14. Cf. Sources of the Self, pp. 14ff.
15. See Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity,
Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991, particularly pp.
35ff.
16. In Sources of the Self, Taylor originally described his
position as being one of moral realism, but somewhat
modified his view subsequent to Michael Rosen’ s critique
in ‘Must We Return to Moral Realism?’, Inquiry 34, 1990,
pp. 183-94; cf. Taylor’s reply, ibid., pp. 245f.
17. Taylor distinguishes between life-goods, which are the
goals I seek to achieve in my life according to my idea of
26
38. Charles Taylor, ‘What is Human Agency’?’,
Philosophical Papers, IVol. I, pp. 15-44, p. 27.
in
39. Explanation and Practical Reason, p. 229.
40. Contrary to Nick Smith (see footnote 34), I interpret
Taylor’s position here as being one of weak hermeneutics.
41. With this term I want to delineate my own suggestion as to
how Taylor could overcome his difficulties.
42. For this idea, cf. Taylor’s ‘Understanding and
Ethnocentricity’, in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 11, pp.
116-33.
43. See the closing pages of Part 11 of Gadamer’s monumental
Truth and Method (1960). Taylor himself suggests
something closely analogous to this in ‘Theories of
Meaning’, in Philosophical Papers, Vo!. I, pp. 248-92; cf.
also pp. 180ff.