[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1960), pp. 70f.
[2] Though the term "Baha'i Faith" is the most common, it carries overtones of piety and apologetics. The term "Baha'ism" is often encountered in academic works, but this is regarded by Baha'is as expressing the same misunderstandings that led to the (now recognized as improper) term "Mohammedanism" for "Muslim." The option used here is the most felicitous. See Robert H. Stockman, ed., "A Curriculum Guide for the Baha'i Faith" (Wilmette, Illinois: Baha'i National Center Research Office, 1994), p. 2.
[3] See J.M. Bernstein, Recovering Ethical Life: Jürgen Habermas and the future of critical theory (Routledge: London, 1995), p. 191.
[4] Throughout this paper I will be using the term "universal" and derivatives of it. Here I should clarify what universalism, in this context, is not. Two of its most common meanings in academia, both of which here it is not, are in 1) comparative religion, where it simply means a religious system claiming world validity, or a concept defined as applicable to all experiencers, and in 2) metaphysics, where it usually relates to the nominalism/realism debate as to whether or not there is a universal Form, or archetype, which gives identity to particular instances of the universal. What it is I will define later.
[5] From Krinein, "to divide" or "to choose," and hence "to judge" or "to examine."
[6] Udo Schaefer, trans. Geraldine Schuckelt, Beyond the Clash of Religions: The Emergence of a New Paradigm (Prague: Zero Palm Press, 1995), pp. 17f.
[7] American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Electronic Edition (InfoSoft International, Inc., 1994), s.v. "Enlightenment."
[8] Quoted in Schaefer, Clash of Religions, p. 27.
[9] Helmut Peukert, "Enlightenment and Theology as Unfinished Projects," in Don S. Browning and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, eds., Habermas, Modernity, and Public Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 43-65, p. 46.
[10] Peukert, "Enlightenment and Theology," p. 48.
[11] David F. Ford, "Epilogue: Postmodernism and Postscript," in David F. Ford, ed., The Modern Theologians: An introduction to Christian theology in the twentieth century (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1989), pp. 291-297, pp. 291f.
[12] Quoted in Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1986), p. 19.
[13] See Sharpe, Comparative Religion, p. 28.
[14] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "supernaturalism." Accessed from the Internet (Linkname: OED Logo Oxford English Dictionary; URL: http://www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/oed/oed.html).
[15] Matthew Lamb, "Communicative Praxis and Theology: Beyond Modern Nihilism and Dogmatism," in Don S. Browning and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, eds., Habermas, Modernity, and Public Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 92-118, p. 108.
[16] Quoted in Udo Schaefer, "Ethics for a Global Society," in The Baha'i Studies Review, Volume 4 Number 1, 1994, pp.47-56, p. 51.
[17] Jürgen Habermas, "Modernity--An Incomplete Project," in Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983), pp. 3-15, pp. 8-10.
[18] Quoted in Jürgen Habermas, Peter Dews, ed., Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jürgen Habermas (London: Verso, 1986), p. 5.
[19] See David M. Rasmussen, "The System/Lifeworld Distinction in the Context of Power," in David M. Rasmussen, Reading Habermas (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 51-54.
[20] Habermas, "Modernity--An Incomplete Project," pp. 9f. Italics in original.
[21] Jürgen Habermas, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen, "Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification, in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), pp. 42-115, pp. 57f. This presentation of communicative action will, unless otherwise noted, largely be taken from ibid., esp. pp. 57-76, "The Principle of Universalizability as a Rule of Argumentation," and "Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action," in ibid., pp. 116-194, esp. "The Perspective Structure of Action Oriented toward Reaching Understanding," pp. 133-141.
[22] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," p. 58. Italics in original.
[23] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "illocution." I am simplifying this: Habermas also makes use of a further distinction of "perlocutionary" speech acts, which are even more strategically-oriented. These distinctions are all drawn from J. L. Austin. Cf. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "perlocution," which quotes Austin's How to do Things with Words, p. 102: "We can similarly distinguish the locutionary act 'he said that..' from the illocutionary act 'he argued that..' and the perlocutionary act 'he convinced me that..'." Italics mine.
[24] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," p. 89.
[25] David E. Klemm, "Two Ways to Avoid Tragedy," in David Jasper, ed., Postmodernism, Literature and the Future of Theology (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), pp. 7-20, p. 18.
[26] Habermas, "Moral Consciousness," p. 141. Habermas expands on this point in Dews, ed., Autonomy and Solidarity, pp. 259-261.
[27] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," p. 88.
[28] David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 85.
[29] David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, p. 86.
[30] In answer to the obvious question "why, then, another religion?" Baha'u'llah responded that education requires ever-increasing levels of knowledge fitted to a changing and ever more mature humanity. It is a fundamental tenet that Baha'u'llah's teachings will one day also be superseded by the next Manifestation. Indeed, Baha'is believe that every religion's scriptures declare that the religion will one day be superseded, but that very few adherents correctly understand these prophesies and accept this fact. Within Christianity, for example, see John 14:2-3, 16:6, and 16:12-13, Acts 1:11.
[31] A concise summary of these three approaches to the theology of religions can be found in Gavin D'Costa, "Theology of Religions," in The Modern Theologians, pp. 274-290. Cf. also John Hick, "Interfaith and the Future," in The Baha'i Studies Review, vol. 4 no. 1, (1994): pp. 1-8. For a Baha'i evaluation of the three approaches, cf. Juan R.I. Cole, "'I am All the Prophets': The Poetics of Pluralism in Baha'i Texts," Poetics Today, vol. 14, no. 3 (Fall 1993): pp. 123-141.
[32] Seyla Benhabib, "Afterword: Communicative Ethics and Current Controversies in Practical Philosophy," in Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr, eds., The Communicative Ethics Controversy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 330-369, pp. 330f.
[33] Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 7, "Ultimate Moral Principles: Their Justification," pp. 177-182, p. 179.
[34] Sometimes also referred to as "impartiality." Cf. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Ultimate Moral Principles," p. 180.
[35] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," p. 63.
[36] Benhabib, "Afterword," p. 334.
[37] Benhabib, "Afterword," p. 335.
[38] Habermas, "Morality and Ethical Life: Does Hegel's Critique of Kant Apply to Discourse Ethics?", in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), p. 195.
[39] Quoted by Dews in Peter Dews, ed., Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jürgen Habermas (London: Verso, 1986), p. 29.
[40] Webster's New World Encyclopedia, college edition (New York: Prentice Hall,1993), s.v. "Popper, Karl."
[41] J. M. Bernstein, Recovering Ethical Life, p. 191.
[42] Quoted in Richard J. Bernstein, ed., Habermas and Modernity (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1985). p. 4.
[43] Cf. Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," p. 65 and p. 93, and Habermas, "Moral Consciousness," p. 120.
[44] Habermas, Autonomy and Solidarity, p. 252.
[45] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," 93. Cf. also p. 66.
[46] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," 94.
[47] Habermas, "Discourse Ethics," 93.
[48] Cf. David E. Klemm, "Two Ways to Avoid Tragedy," p. 10.
[49] Benhabib, "Afterword," p. 344.
[50] Benhabib, "Afterword," p. 345. (I translate, "they will be forced to be free.")
[51] While there obviously have been exceptions, and the women who voluntarily submitted to this treatment were doubtless fewer than those who were forced to submit to it, the fact remains that some adult, rational women have freely agreed to it. This example differs from, say, forced genital mutilation of African girls, for the girls, being children, could not be considered old enough, or, in Habermasian terms, "rational" enough to fully understand and agree to the action.
[52] Benhabib, "Afterword," p. 356 and p. 342, respectively.
[53] Albrecht Wellmer, "Practical Philosophy and the Theory of Society," in Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr, eds., The Communicative Ethics Controversy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 293-329, p. 327.
[54] "One can also understand the choice of a [universal] reference system... in a different way: namely, as grounded in the interest of reconstructing a system of rules that will be recognized by speakers..." Wellmer, "Practical Philosophy," p. 327. Wellmer continues, explaining that we can see this level of abstraction, not as a discourse constraint forced upon the participants, but as one chosen in exactly the same method that a moral norm is chosen, i.e. consensually and willingly. However, though acknowledging this alternate explanation, he does not carry it through.
[55] Wellmer, "Practical Philosophy," p. 327. Italics in original.
[56] Cf. also Spanish, saber vs. conocer, and Arabic, 'alama vs. 'arafa.
[57] Richard J. Bernstein, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 16.
[58] Chomsky's generative grammar includes abstract principles of grammar that, not only are universal, but point to the possibility of language having a biological basis. Piaget's and Kohlberg's theories detail stages by which cognition (Piaget) and morality (Kohlberg) develop in all individuals in clear-cut stages, universal in their general structure in all humans and all cultures.
[59] Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988), pp. 276.
[60] Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas, pp. 278f.
[61] Richard J. Bernstein, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 16.
[62] Habermas, "Moral Consciousness," p. 118.
[63] Habermas, "Moral Consciousness," pp. 136f. Italics in original.
[64] Habermas also speaks of a fourth validity claim, comprehensibility, which stipulates that the sentence itself is a comprehensible one. I.e., "this ball is red" contains a level of clear, comprehensible meaning in a way that "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe" doesn't. However, he concentrates on the three given above.
[65] Habermas, "Concluding Remarks," in Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992), pp. 462-480, p. 463.
[66] Though there is not the space here to explain this fully, I do not want to leave the reader with the impression that the Baha'i religion merely seeks to replace lesser forms of imperialism with a global one. Moojan Momen, an eminent Baha'i scholar, writes: "The Baha'i Faith is..., I would argue, in reality, a metareligion. It is not another religion that has come to take the place of the existing religions but rather a way of looking at the religious experience of the whole of humanity... What I see the Baha'i Faith doing is taking the religious traditions of the world and developing these along their own traditional paths of spirituality... The world-wide Baha'i community would act as a medium in which these different spiritual pathways would become globally available." Moojan Momen, "Beyond Pluralism" (unpublished article, 1995), pp. 1f.
[67] Interpreters are sometimes quick to exemplify this with the adage "to agree to disagree." This is misleading, because it implies contentiousness, a dead end in an argument. A more accurate axiom would be "to allow to be different."
[68] Quoted in The Universal House of Justice Research Dept., compiler, Consultation: A Compilation (Wilmette, Illinois: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1995), Nos. 20 and 9, respectively.
[69] All administrative bodies in the Baha'i religion, from local to international, are corporate, possessing at minimum nine members. Power of governance is never invested in individuals, hence each and every major administrative, legal, or interpretive ("spiritual") decision is made only through the process of consultation. In contradistinction, Habermas only sees religious institutions as resistant to democracy. See Kenneth MacKendrick, "Method, Theory, and Communicative Action: An Exploration into Jürgen Habermas's Contribution to the Study of Religion (unpublished paper, delivered at a symposium at the University of Toronto on April 27, 1996), p. 13.
[70] From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, in Consultation, No. 31.
[71] Quoted in John Huddleston, The Earth is But One Country (London: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1980), p. 99.
[72] MacKendrick, "Method, Theory, and Communicative Action," p. 11.
[73] Quoted in Consultation, Nos. 22 and 26, respectively.
[74] See note 69, above. Cf. also Compilation on Baha'i Administration (Wilmette, Illinois: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974), p. 96, and Helen Bassett Hornby, compiler, Lights of Guidance: A Baha'i Reference File, third edition (New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1994), No. 585.
[75] Cf. Compilation on Baha'i Administration. The proscription of positive or negative campaigning includes elections as well as discourse. An individual who publicly campaigns for his or her election to a governing body is automatically barred from consideration and, conversely, those individuals who are elected are expected to "serve" on the body (though not required, it is rare for someone to refuse). This procedure puts into practice the old Chinese adage that "He who most wants to lead is least fit to do so, and he who is most fit to lead least wants to."
76 Consultation, No. 20. Italics added.
[77] The Universal House of Justice, quoted in Lights of Guidance, No. 584.
[78] Cf. Moojan Momen, "Relativism: A Basis for Baha'i Metaphysics," in Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions, volume 5 (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1988), pp. 185-218.
[79] Consultation, No. 12.
[80] 'Abdu'l- Baha writes: "It is better that all should agree on a wrong decision, than for one right vote to be singled out, inasmuch as single votes can be sources of dissension, which lead to ruin. Whereas, if in one case they take a wrong decision, in a hundred other cases they will adopt right decisions, and concord and unity are preserved. This will offset any deficiency, and will eventually lead to the righting of the wrong." Quoted in Consultation, No. 15.
[81] See Habermas, in Autonomy and Solidarity, p. 260.