Habermas: Ideal Speech Situation re communicative rationality

However the critical testing of arguments also pre-suppose
that the relevant arguments are there - in other words, in
order to evaluate the product we, in addition to an
adequate procedure of critical discussion, also needs an
adequat process. An adequat process requires 1) that no one
capable of making a relevant contribution have been

excluded, 2) that the participants have an equal right to
be heard, 3) that they are free to speak their honest
opinion i.e. that they can be sincere, 4) and that there is
no coersion or force build into the procedures, i.e. they
should not be foreced to say something. (Habermas 2005 p.89)

  
Habermas sets up these four criteria as an idealized
setting knowing that in reality it often occurs that some
party has been excluded intended or unintended, that there
are elements of coercion in politics and that not everyone
has an equal voice.
In other words full inclusion is
problematic, non-coersion is problematic and equality of
the right to make an utterance is all problematic, which
Habermas acknowledges - these principles therefore
functions as standards for learning-processes in order to
find the better argument as an ideal type. (2005 p.91)

Assumptions


 
  
  
 
 
  
Habermas argues that the better argument is found via
consensus. For truth claims dealing with the objective
world, Habermas claims, that consensus is possible because
we all share this same world of physical things, such as
atoms etc. Any claim about the objective world is therefore
subject to universal discourse, with the possibility of
universal consensus. For the validity claim of normative
rightness, Habermas holds, that valid moral rules holds for
all human beings. An appropriate participation in dialogues
concerning truth and moral rightness would therefore, in
Habermas's eyes, in principle ensure a universal consensus,
given that the the procedure and the process is adequat.
The claim to sincerity is not subject to discourse in the
same way as the two other validity claims. A claim to
sincerity is judged on the expression of an intention and
evaluated according to the behaviour of the person. If one
says something and repeatedly does something else we have
reasons to doubt his/her sincerity.
c.f critique of habermas by Galtuung