Paradigm Lost

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1991 29: 82Thesis ElevenNiklas Luhmann

Prize 1988Paradigm Lost: On the Ethical Reflection of Morality : Speech on the Occasion of the Award of the Hegel

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82

PARADIGM LOST: ON THE

ETHICAL REFLECTION OF

MORALITY

Speech on the Occasionof the Award of the

Hegel Prize 1988

Niklas Luhmann

I.

When a sociologist conscious of his discipline concerns himself with theo-retical matters which are normally treated by philosophers, it is inevitable thatother aspects come to the fore. Whether this can lead to a fruitful dialoguebetween the disciplines can hardly be determined in the abstract. The honourwhich you accord me with the award of the Hegel Prize offers an opportunityto pursue this question by means of an example.

Currently ethics is often referred to in the most diverse contexts. In the&dquo;New Westphalian&dquo; newspaper for instance I read on 6 July 1988: &dquo;While the

producers of ethical products complain about state intervention, the sales of theproducers of self-medications are slowly but constantly growing&dquo;. One mightfirst ask: is ethics no longer a self-medication? And then the suspicion arisesthat a printing error could be involved.’ All the more remarkable, SigmundFreud would have said, the ethics wave has reached the unconscious.

One should not be too surprised. The ethics wave returns in the eighties ofevery century with astrological regularity-at least since the spread of printing.In the eighties of the 16th century there is the impressive Justus Lipsius andwhat later came to be called neostoicism. Some scholars date the beginnings ofa theory of morality independent of theology from around 1580.~ Perhaps that isexaggerated. At any event we find a hundred years later after long discussionsof the problem of sincere devotion a new theoretical formulation. The oldschema virtue/vice becomes superseded: the one side of virtue is further split



83

into true and false virtues. True virtue is left to the theologians as an emptyconcept which is elucidated by reference to false virtues.3 Since the theologianscannot theoretically solve the problem thereby posed but devote themselves towarnings, lament and abuse, further development stagnates.4 In its place theconcept of self-love is radicalized and going with this the difference betweendivine providence and secular (human) order is accentuated.5 This leads to aconception of morality in which self-love is itself socialized and consequentlythe moral rules are no longer understood as specifications of the will of God, asis still the case with Locke,6 but as the crystallization of natural feelings.’ Socialanalysis emancipates itself from the theologians’ claim to be ahle to observeGod and know his criteria, and thus from the associated self-doubt. In its placethe conditions of social order start being explored in their own terms.

Social development, however, soon disappointed the hopes thus groundedand compelled a new form of reflection on the grounding of moral judgmentsin rationality. In the eighties of the 18th century Kant takes the German sep-arate path of transcendentalism. In the West Bentham inaugurates the effortstowards a utilitarian calculus of rationality. There appears at the same timefrom prison the inverted philosophy of the Marquis de sade.~ These three vari-ants establish for the first time ethics as a theoretical reflection of morality. Butwhat is new here?

In terms of the history of philosophy one is naturally impressed by theenormous expenditure of intellectual effort and by a solicitude for theoreticalconstruction hitherto unknown in these questions-as if as it were ethics hadto secure itself as theory against doubts regarding morality. The sociologist isstruck rather by the abandonment of the old unity of morality and manners.That was not yet the case with Harrington, or Montesquieu or the Scottishmoral philosophers-to name only a few. The old ethics and the unity ofmorality and manners had always depended on social stratification and thenfinally in the 18th century on questions of property distrihution. The new

approach of ethical reflection at the end of the 18th century breaks with this.And perhaps we can explain the excessive investment in theory-or if weinclude Sade: the excessive investment in scandal-which is now necessary

simply in the following way: given the radical restructuring of the social systemthe reference to the social system society had to be abandoned and could notbe replaced.

The next wave arrives on time. After a long period of abstinence lectureson ethics fill the lecture lists of German universities at the beginning of theeighties of the 19th century. The neo-Kantians also take up these &dquo;practical&dquo;questions,9 not without provoking violent immune reactions a la Nietzsche.Nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, socialism and similar monsters are thequestions of the day. And once again ethics is looked to for help. Natu-

rally there are hardly any theoretical innovations working mentioning-unlessof course you regard the revaluation of the concept of value, the distinction



84

between being and validity, Simmel’s socio-psychological sensibilizing of tran-scendental aprioris, or Scheler’s opposition of a formal (Kantian) and a materialethics of value as a theoretical achievement.

As was to be expected we find the same phenomenon in the same decadeof the 20th century, admittedly weaker in execution and confined almost en-tirely to appeals and emergency brakes. Well-established themes of traditionreturn in the debates. Hans Jonas proclaims the principle of responsibility.And political commissions for the articulation of unrealizable interests and forthe preparation of provisional regulations receive their mandate in the nameof ethics.

I leave it to the astrologers to explain why this comet ethics regularlyappears towards the end of the century and fairly exactly in the ninth decade.My question is whether and how we can use it in the social situation at the endof the 20th century. And my answer will be: not by rewriting and reformulatingthe textual traditions but only through the cooperation of a sociological theoryof society and ethical reflection.

BL

The first requirement is an empirically useful concept of morality. I un-

derstand by morality a special form of communication which carries with it

indications of approval or disapproval. It is not a question of good or badachievements in specific respects, e.g. as an astronaut, musician, researcheror football player, but of the whole person insofar as s/he is esteemed as aparticipant in communication. 10 Approval or disapproval is attributed typicallyaccording to particular conditions. Morality is the useable totality of such con-ditions at any time. It is not continuously applied, rather there is somethingslightly pathological about it. Only when things became dangerous is there

occasion to refer implicitly or explicitly to the conditions according to whichone approves or disapproves of others or the self. The sphere of morality isthereby empirically delimited and not defined for example as the sphere ofapplication of certain norms or rules or values. This has the advantage of ahigher exactness as compared to attempts to determine the specific nature ofmoral (as opposed, for instance, to legal) rules on the level of norms or values.Above all we gain the possibility of asking what happens if conditioning ofwhatever kind (whether legal, political, racial or of personal taste) is moral-

ized, with the consequence, for instance, that X considers he cannot approveof Y and cannot invite him if he has a bust of Bismarck on his piano.

If this may be called morality, if this concept deals only with the conditionsof the market of approval, then we are free to use the concept ethics or ethicalin a different way. Ethics is, we could now say, the description of morality.Up to the 18th century this description was organized as the description of anormative-rational special sphere of nature.ll Only in the last decades of the



85

18th century does there emerge, as I previously mentioned, an ethics whichseeks to make good the claim to be a theoretical reflection of morality. If this,sociologically speaking, is connected with the transformation of society fromstratified to functional differentiation, then this version of the problem of thedescription of morality ought to be still binding for us today. We cannot goback behind it-however much one would like to be re-inspired by Aristotle.The question nevertheless remains: what exactly is to be reflected on; and inthis question quite a lot can have changed since the ethics wave at the end ofthe 18th century.

m.

In both utilitarian and transcendental ethics it was a question of the rationalgrounding of moral judgments. In this version ethics could understand itself asa moral undertaking, include itself in its own description of morality and, to putit simply, consider itself to be good. This presupposed a distancing from pastethical theories; further, at least implicitly, also a trust in the guarantees of peaceand in the neutrality towards interests of the constitutional state. One couldalmost speak here of a political ethics in a new mode. Certainly there was anelement of distance towards the decisions arising from life forms and a choiceof purposes was built in. Nevertheless it was still a question of the groundingof moral judgments and thus of a theory/practice relation to morality.

If as a sociologist one observes the practice of moral communicationdoubts arise whether this is the problem with which ethics should concernitself. There are more than enough grounds and it is not difficult to put themstylistically into a consensual form. Rhetoric was already aware of this. If youabstract in the direction of really good grounds then you break off the possi-bility of drawing conclusions from such principles. This did not matter as longas stratification remained intact and socialization could fill the gap. But oncethat was no longer the case: how could one hope to replace socio-structuralconditions by a theoretical construct, however sophisticated it might be?

If we renounce this ambition, other possibilities of grasping moral com-munications in their social contexts come into view. Without striving for com-pleteness or a systematic overview I would like to name some aspects whichquickly make it apparent that a social theory of ethics leads to other problems,perhaps to other tasks:

1. Above all it must be conceded that none of the functional systems canbe integrated into the social system by means of morality. The functional

systems owe their autonomy to their individual functions, but also to theirindividual binary coding, e.g. the distinction between true and untnie in thescientific system or the distinction between government and opposition in thedemocratic political system. In neither case can the two values of these codes



86

be made congruent with the two values of the code of morality.&dquo; We donot want tlie government to be declared structurally good and the oppositionstructurally bad or worse evil. That would be the death sentence for democracy.The same result can be checked in the case of true/untrue, of good or badmarks, of financial payments or their omission, of love decisions for this andfor no other partner. The functional codes must operate on a level of a higheramorality because they must make their two values available for all operationsof the system. Moreover, the functional systems have had a consciousness ofthis uncoupling from morality since the beginning of their differentiation. Thisis evident from the literature on raison d6tat and on economic striving forprofit as the condition for growth or in the semantics of passionate love andin the ideas about the function of law for freedom. Even the Last Judgmentcould not be conceived as a purely moral final reckoning; that would amountto a victory of the Devil over I~Iaria.l~ It is only consequent that hell could bedescribed as the realm of perfect moral theatre in the 18th century.14

A society differentiated into functional systems must accordingly renouncemoral integration. At the same time, however, it retains the communicative

practice of speaking to human beings as whole persons through the condition-ing of approval and disapproval. Thus moral inclusion as before but withoutthe moral integration of the social system. What does ethics have to say tothis?

2. Seen empirically moral communication is close to conflict and thus lo-cated close to violence. The expression of approval and disapproval leads toan over-engagement of the participants. Whoever communicates morally bymaking known the conditions under which he disapproves of others and ofhimself, invests and places at risk his self-approval. He can easily get into sit-uations in which he must choose stronger means in order to meet challenges.The institution of the duel was meant to privatize this problem and it took cen-turies before the law could assert itself against this last gasp of the old upperclass, as the Marquis Mirabeau called 1t15-a case of the victory of law overmorality which is seldom acknowledged today.

Taking this polymogenous origin and the corresponding effects of moral-ity into account: may we then advise ethics to consider morality morally goodwithout question? Or are we not then confusing two concepts-that of themoral code of good and bad which symbolizes approval or disapproval, andthat of the positive value &dquo;good&dquo; as an element of this code which cannot standon its own?

3. This leads to a third problem of which tradition was well aware butwhich is hardly ever adequately taken into account today. Every binary codeincluding that of morality leads to paradoxes when it is applied to itself. Wecannot decide whether the distinction between good and bad is itself good ornot rather bad. As everyone knows this problem cost mankind paradise andeven before that the best of angels his damnation.16 There are thus theological



87

analyses of this paradox. Equally rhetoric has always known that all virtuescan be presented as vices and all vices as virtues. As soon as consequenceswere taken into consideration and an ethics of responsibility began to emergethis paradox cast its shadow over motivation. If reprehensible action can havegood consequences, as the 17th and 18th century economists assure us, andif inversely the best intentions can lead to bad results, as we can see frompolitics, then moral motivation blocks itself. Should ethics then counsel goodor bad action? As we know ethics has abandoned this problem to economicor political theory, that is, to the market or to constitutional law, and spareditself a standpoint of its own.

4. My last example refers to the form in which the future is made vis-ible and rationalized through decisions. This is dealt with today under theconcept of risk. On the one hand an immense research effort is investedin the rationalizing of risks. But however great the effort of calculation fi-nal security is not to be attained; further reflection suggests that even un-

dertaking this attempt is too risky.&dquo; On the other hand this calculus as wellas the whole concept of risk applies only to the decision taker who thinksof the consequences of his own decision. His risk, however, involves dan-gers for others. Empirical investigations show that the individual can be moreor less prepared for risk in relation to his own behaviour, but that he reactsextremely sensitively to dangers which result from the behaviour of others.Test this while driving. First investigations of AIDS show a correspondingpattern. And, of course, this applies to all the agitation which accumulatesin the vicinity of nuclear power industries, chemical industries or gene tech-nology.

Sociological research has hardly begun here. If it is the case, however,that perspectives on the future apply completely different criteria according towhether the problem is approached from the perspective of risk or of danger-whether, that is to say, it is a question of the consequence of one’s own deci-sions or of the decisions of others-then this new kind of difference, typicalfor modern society, blows traditional consensual expectations apart-whetherthey are formulated from the standpoint of reason or from the standpoint ofethical principles.

On the one side morality is concentrated in the standpoint of those affectedand it is socially generalized under the pressure of expectation as the need toshow concern through the concerns of others: &dquo;How do you deal with it?&dquo; one

individual asks another. This perspective can provide no criteria, however,for decisions involving risk. Those affected involve themselves blindly in therisk of avoiding risk. The difference between risk and danger thus indicates aproblem of social communication which is already on the way to pushing theold problems of welfare distribution from the first place in political relevance.And again we observe in the middle of the ethics wave at the end of this



88

century that there is not even an adequate thematization of this problem, letalone standpoints which are capable of convincing either as a solution or atleast as a regulation of the problem.

Clearly we have here a relation of tension between the temporal and thesocial dimension for which no ethical regulation has as yet been found. If wewant to take full advantage of the chances of rationality, dealing with our ownfuture must be left open in a way which can lead to social burdens. The same

problem appears equally in the sphere of scarcity, that is, in the economy. Themore one person reinforces his provision for the future and thereby freezesmeans, the scarcer become goods for the others who want to or need to usethem now. It is true that traditional societies were able to develop a moralityin this respect, above all the morality of male self-assertion against rivals; 18 thetransference, however, of this morality to social orders in cash-based economiesnever succeeded Scarcity and risk are exactly complementary time perspec-tives. In the one case the aim despite scarcity is as much future security as ispossible in the present-at the expense of others. In the other case the aimis to make full use of the chances of rationality which lie in the acceptance ofinsecurity-and here too at the expense of others. In both cases calculationsof rationality have been developed which are based on indifference to the so-cial consequences. In both cases we have no ethics which could balance thetension between the temporal and social dimensions. This is the reason whyproblems of distribution have become political problems for our society; andit looks as though the same will happen with the problems of risk.

There are thus many reasons for assuming that ethical reflection in theforms it found at the end of the 18th century can no longer function. Paradigmlost. And paradigm regained? A new interest is already apparent at the end ofthe 18th century; it takes the form, however, of an interest in language: Herder,then Humboldt. Today this current flows into a wide, branching delta and haseven taken up aspects of the old rationality discussion, but only in terms ofspeech actions. It is not clear how a social theory, capable of adequatelydescribing modern society, could be developed from this. It would requirea reorientation from speech actions to communication and from language tosocial system in the theoretical design.

All the same, the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy has led to im-portant innovations. In our context one is above all relevant: that linguisticresearch must use language and thus reappears in its own subject matter. 20This poses the question whether the same applies to morality. The researcheron ethics does not have to write an ethics which submits itself to a moral judg-ment. Research on ethics, however, cannot avoid being social communication.’I’o that extent at least the researcher reappears in his subject matter. The self-referential circle can be extended this way, but it cannot be avoided. It is an

indication that every grounding of statements on ethics and morality must takea self-referential form; but it still leaves the choice between the narrow circle of



89

an ethics, which grounds its own moral quality, and the wide circle of a socialtheory, which presupposes that all research operates as social communicationand that research on morality can take place only in society as the place whereinter alia moral distinctions also occur.

IV.

The concentration on questions of the moral grounding of moral judg-ments has cost ethics its reference to social reality. Perhaps that is the reasonwhy it is in demand as a disinterested instance. But how can ethics judge theaffairs of a society which it does not know?

Neither the transcendental nor the utilitarian paradigm, however reno-vated, can help us further here.2I Nevertheless it would be a mistake to over-react and declare the whole undertaking of ethics to be out of date or toattribute it, in Diderot’s formulation, to the tic of moralizing.22 Morally con-ditioned communication exists; ethics thus has the task of taking a positiontowards it.

Another way out also appears unavailable: we cannot put a sociologicaltheory of society in the place which only ethics can fill. That would not evenhave been acceptable for sociology. If ethics is to be and remain a theoreticalreflection of morality (and it would make little sense to use the historically fixedexpression differently), then it must bind itself to the code of morality, that is,submit itself to the binary schematism of good and bad; it must itself desirethe good and not the bad, whereas for sociology it is a question of the truth oruntruth of its statements. That sociologists can also be morally evaluated, likeall human behaviour, does not alter this difference. The research programmesof sociology follow in their scientific practice not the moral code but the truthcode.

Only thus is a sociology of ethics, a historical-sociological analysis of eth-ical semantics possible. Only thus is it possible to arrive at a sociologicalcritique of the social adequacy of ethical theories and to register that ethicshas allowed itself to be determined by its own textual traditions longer thancan be justified. Such an analysis is able in its own right to clarify structuresof modern society and indicate the problems which arise in the course of thereproduction of this type of society.

We can observe and describe the consequences of this social formation toa greater extent than in the time of Kant and the French Revolution; and this isthe task which sociology must face up to at the end of this century. This leads,however, neither directly nor indirectly to a moral evaluation. Besides, societyis not a possible object of moral evaluation; it would be absurd to regard thosewho hold modern society to be good as bad on that account or to approvethose who critically reject society on that account. These are basically errors ofthought which are easy to avoid since society as the comprehensive system of



90

all communications is neither good nor bad but the condition that somethingcan be so characterized.

Having stated this and having registered the corresponding reservations,we can still recognize that social theory can set limits to ethics. A morality canignore, of course, such limits by proposing other conditions for approval anddisapproval. It can, for instance, divide its world into destroyers and protectorsof the environment or it can proceed from the principle that an alternative inquestion is better than what has previously been tried and recommended.There are many possibilities of moral communication and there is no lack ofvalues and good grounds to which one can appeal. We are entitled to demandfrom an ethics, however, that it includes the structures of the social system inits reflections whenever it awards a seal of approval or even simply a certificateof clearance.

If the assumption is correct that modern society can no longer be integratedby means of morality and that it is no longer able to allot people their place bymeans of morality, then ethics has to be in the position to limit the sphere ofapplication of morality: do we have to put up day after day with politicians ofthe governing and opposition parties morally accusing each other, even thoughdemocracy, properly understood, does not demand that we choose betweenthem according to moral standpoints? Do movements for regional autonomyhave to be launched under a moral flag? Does a precautionary legal limitationof risky research or of technologies of production have to be proclaimed as amoral or even ethical commandment, when a year later with better informationwe shall prefer a stricter or less strict regulation? And above all: how aresanctions of approval or disapproval to be applied to the assumption of risksif there is no such thing as risk-free behaviour, and ethics, at least up to now,has been unable to develop consensual criteria?

Given this situation, perhaps the most pressing task of ethics is to warnagainst morality. This is not an absolutely new desideratum. The 18th centuryinvented humour for this purpose, a breakwater as it were for unexpectedmoral storrns. That, presupposes, however, too much discipline and too greata strata-specific socialization. Warning is equally a paradoxical activity withits goal of producing its own superfluity. Perhaps we could expect on thesegrounds that ethics, now that it has become a theoretical reflection of morality,make higher demands on itself.

Whether an ethics, which takes account of the conditions of modern so-ciety and at the same time proclaims itself good, is at all possible, is not a

question which the sociologist can finally judge. Doubt is called for here. Cer-tainly the political need is not alone sufficient any more than the good willof all concerned. If, however, such endeavours are undertaken, they shouldat least meet certain minimal theoretical claims. At the very least we oughtto be able to expect that ethics does not simply declare its solidarity with thegood side of morality and forget the bad side, but that it thematizes morality



91

as a d,,’,5tinction, i.e. the distinction between good and bad or good and evil.For then the question is immediately raised, when is it good to apply this dis-tinction and when not. Here the first requirernent is to be able to distinguishthe distinction and the question is: from what? In the language of GotthardGiinther, we would have to be able to agree about acceptance and reflectionvalues in relation to distinctions.23 Or in the language of constructivist episte-mology in systems theory: one must be able to observe with the help of whichdistinctions observers observe and what they can and cannot see with them. 24If such an ethics were successful, it would be able to comprehend that a veryspecific distinction, i.e. between good and bad, can be applied universally, i.e.to all behaviour. And according to the sociologist Talcott Parsons precisely thiscombination of the pattern variables specific/universal is a feature of modernworld orientation.2’

With a theoretical approach based on difference the old problem of therelation between morality and freedom dissolves of itself. Tradition saw free-dom as the precondition of moral judgment and only concerned itself withthe nature of this precondition, reacting to the problem by a developmentfrom natural to transcendent-religious to transcendental references. That leftonly the possibility of grasping freedom as a quality of human beings. But

how?

Against this a sociological theory could assume that freedom is as it werea by-product of communication. For whenever something determinate is com-municated one can say yes or no to it (and if not, not). Moral communicationoffers no exception here. Its commandments can also be rejected. Whereasin the normal course of communication there are routines for dealing withrejection and contradiction, morality tries to bind freedom-which after all it

presupposes and itself reproduces-to the good side, that is, to cancel it. Thisis the reason why freedom has become a theme, especially as a problem forethics. And here ethics is obliged to presuppose something of which it cannotapprove and consequently it is obliged to enter into the most difficult construc-tions in order to dissolve this paradox.

No progress without paradox, we could add. But perhaps this specificform is quite unnecessary. If freedom is introduced not as a preconditionof morality but as a by-product of communication, then it is compatible withthe structural determination of all self-referential systems. The old disputebetween determinism and indeterminism disappears. Instead we are faced

by the question, what is the meaning of accepting or rejecting the freedomwhich is anyway given in all communication, of morally recoding it, even ifit only amounts to a distinction, whose values good/bad likewise produce incommunication the freedom of acceptance or rejection-and now with veryproblematic, resulting burdens.

All the same, all these initial steps towards theories which are able to

distinguish distinctions have their grand model in Hegel’s logic. T’his logic



92

offers the never surpassed attempt to process distinctions with reference towhat is identical or different in them. Nobody has succeeded in organizingit differently. In second-order cybernetics, in Gotthard Gianther’s concept ofpolycontextuality and in the operative logic of George Spencer Brown’s Lawsof Form we see the search for quite different approaches to a similar problem.In all these cases it is no longer a question of determining objects but ofdistinguishing distinctions. For a sociologist, however, the air is too rarified.His interest in a theory of modern society leads him to wish: if only it could

be done.

Translated by David Roberts

Notes

1. The term "ethical products" is borrowed from English and is not familiar in Germany(translator’s note).

2. Joseph Dedieu, "Les origines de la morale indépendente", Revue pratiqued’apologétique 8 (1909), pp. 401-423, 579-598.

3. For the theological version see for instance De la Volpilière, Le Caractère de la

véritable et la fausse piété (Paris, 1685). The problem confronting theology, whichit is incapable of solving, is evident purely quantitatively: four pages on véritable

piété and, with an eye on the world, 466 pages on fausse piété. For a secular ethicswith a similar division see the better known work of Jacques Esprit, La fausseté desvertus humaines, 2 vols (Paris, 1677/1678).

4. In retrospect one can adduce an additional cause: the lack of a sufficiently abstract

theory of binary coding.5. It is sufficient to name here: Blaise Pascal, François de La Rochefoucauld, Pierre

Nicole, Jacques Esprit, Balthasar Gracián and 1670-1690 as the period.6. In particular here a polemic against Locke leading on to Scottish moral philosphy:

John Dunn, "From Applied Theology to Social Analysis: The Break between JohnLocke and the Scottish Enlightenment" in Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds.),Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment(Cambridge, 1983), pp. 119-135.

7. Probably first in the book directed against Hobbes by Richard Cumberland, Delegibus natural disquisitio philosophica (London, 1672). ’Translated into English in1727—a delay which indicates the need to wait for Shaftesbury.

8. The comparison with Kant was first proposed by Max Horkheimer and TheodorAdorno, but on the questionable basis of a theory of the "bourgeois" movement.See the "Second Excursus Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" in Dialectic ofEnlightenment.

9. On this point Klaus Christian Köhnke, Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianis-mus (Frankfurt, 1986), esp. pp. 426 ff. Further investigatins are underway in theSimmel Project of the Sociology Faculty, Bielefeld University. For a sociological cri-



93

tique see above all Georg Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft: Kritik derethischeu Grundbegriffe, 2 vols (Berlin, 1892/1893).

10. See the corresponding distinction between esteem and approval in Talcott Parsons,The Social System (Glencoe, Ill., 1951), pp. 109, 130 ff. and passim.

11. I must omit the detials here—i.e. the question whether it is meaningful to speakof a biblical "ethos"; further the switch from a description of habitus to a descrip-tion, which presupposes in ethics approval of one’s own behaviour and thus the

possibility of guilt; and finally the reduction of ethics to rules of control over one’sbehaviour as distinct from control of the household (economics) and control of

political society (politics)—a division to be found in the philosophia moralis of theschools.

12. cf. here Charles E. Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge, 1987).13. See on this scene typical for the high and late Middle Ages Gérard Gros, "Le diable et

son adversaire dans l’Advocacie Nostre Dame (poème des XIVe siecle)" in Le diableau moyen âge (Doctrines, problèmes moraux, représentations) (Aix-en-Province,1979), pp. 237-258.

14. Thus Jean-Frédéric Bernard, Eloge d’Enfer: Ouvrage critique, historique et moral, 2vols (The Hague, 1759).

15. "The wars of the nobility of which duels are the last gasp" in Mirabeau, L’ami desHommes, ou Traité de la population (1756; quoted in the edition Paris, 1883, p. 19).

16. Sufi mysticism derives this directly from a paradoxical (or so perceived) directionfrom God—a case of double bind! See Peter J. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemp-tion : Iblis in Sufi Psychology (Leiden, 1983).

17. Thus Aaron Wildavsky, Searching for Safety (New Brunswick, 1988).18. cf. George M. Foster, "Peasant Society and the Image of the Limited Good", Ameri-

can Anthropologist 67 (1965), pp. 293-315.19. For the corresponding causes of peasant revoles etc. see E.P. Thompson, "The

Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the 18th Century", Past and Present 50(1971), pp. 76-136; James S. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasctnt: Rebellion andSubsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven, 1976). Both works, however, schematizethe contrast in a form which does not do full justice to ethical reflection (for instanceof Adam Smith).

20. Lars Löfgren calls this the "autological predicament", "Toward System: From Com-

putation to the Phenomenon of Language" in Marc E. Carvallo (ed.), Nature, Cog-nition and System I: Current Systems-Scientific Research on Natural and CognitiveSystems (Dordrecht, 1988), pp. 129-155.

21. One could think here as a sociologist of the early work of Talcott Parsons, The Struc-ture of Social Action (New York, 1937), currently the subject of much discussion. Itis oriented to the classics of sociology who translate either the individual-utilitarianor the transcendental-theoretical position into sociology, and it sets out to showthat both attempts end up with one and the same sociological theory. This is still

a matter of serious discussion fifty years later. cf. the instructive contribution of

Hans Jonas, "The Antinomien des Neofunktionalismus—eine Auseinandersetzung



94

mit Jeffrey Alexander", Zeitschrift für Soziologie 17 (1988), pp. 272-285.22. Thus in Satire I: Sur les caractères et les mots de caractère quoted from Diderot,

Ouevres (Paris, 1951), pp. 1217-1229.23. cf. esp. "Das metaphysische Problem einer Formalisierung der transzendental-

dialektischen Logik: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Logik Hegels", and"Cybernetic Ontology and Transfunctional Operations" in Gotthard Günther,Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik vol. 1 (Hamburg,1976), pp. 189-247 and 249-328.

24. See Heinz von Foerster, Observing Systems (Seaside, Cal., 1981).25. For the frequently varied presentations cf. Talcott Parsons, Robert Bales and Ed-

ward Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action (Glencoe, Ill., 1953), esp. 63 ff.and Parsons, "Pattern Variables Revisited", American Sociological Review 25 (1960),pp. 467-483. One of the seldom attempts at a sociological theory of morality hasits basis here, i.e. Jan J. Loubser, "The Contribution of Schools to Moral Develop-ment : A Working Paper in the Theory of Action", Interchange 1 (1970), pp. 99-177.Loubser seeks a way to morality via a modern/traditional combination of patternvariables, i.e. affective neutrality/quality and universalism/diffuseness. I try to avoidthis in the text by distinguishing between the rather traditional structure of moralityand the specifically modern demands on ethics.



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