Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Chapter 1 Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory
- Section I Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism
- Section II Origins of the analytical distinctions and conceptual foundations: retracing steps taken by Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons
- Chapter 5 Societal constitutionalism's grounding against relativism: from Weber's legal positivism to Habermas's communication theory
- Chapter 6 Societal constitutionalism's threshold in practice: from Fuller's legal theory to societal constitutionalism
- Chapter 7 Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, I: voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
- Chapter 8 Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, II: from voluntaristic action to collegial formations
- Section III Implications of the analytical distinctions and conceptual foundations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Other books in the series
Chapter 7 - Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, I: voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Chapter 1 Introduction: societal constitutionalism as critical theory
- Section I Conceptual foundations of societal constitutionalism
- Section II Origins of the analytical distinctions and conceptual foundations: retracing steps taken by Habermas, Fuller, and Parsons
- Chapter 5 Societal constitutionalism's grounding against relativism: from Weber's legal positivism to Habermas's communication theory
- Chapter 6 Societal constitutionalism's threshold in practice: from Fuller's legal theory to societal constitutionalism
- Chapter 7 Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, I: voluntaristic action as a distinct concept
- Chapter 8 Societal constitutionalism's organizational manifestation, II: from voluntaristic action to collegial formations
- Section III Implications of the analytical distinctions and conceptual foundations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Other books in the series
Summary
The importance of voluntaristic action In chapter 4 institutions of external procedural restraint were distinguished analytically from three other types of institutions. What was left unclear was how any normative restraint, procedural or substantive, can remain “external” to group competition and systemic drift, and simultaneously contribute intrinsically to a nonauthoritarian direction of social change. Once Parsons's early concept of voluntaristic action is reformulated into a distinct concept, it becomes clear how this is possible.
As a preliminary approach, voluntaristic action may be defined in the following way:
Voluntaristic action is an analytical distinction drawn within the broader categories of normative action and nonrational action. It is distinctive in that it alone is comprised of (a) qualitative worldly ends, and (b) the symbolic or normative means that allow actors to recognize such ends in common.
Once voluntaristic action is distinguished analytically from purposiverational action, on one side, and from nonrational and normative action, on the other, the theory of societal constitutionalism may be seen clearly to revolve around normative restraints that are distinctively procedural and voluntaristic. The theory cannot be based on substantive restraints of any kind, whether normative or strategic. It also cannot be based on procedures that are rational rather than distinctively voluntaristic.
Still, what exactly is the relationship between voluntaristic action as a distinct concept and the internal and external restraints introduced in chapter 4? What is the relationship between voluntaristic action as a distinct concept and the procedural turns taken by Habermas and Fuller discussed in chapters 5 and 6? Finally, why was it said in chapter 4 and then again at the end of chapter 6 that Fuller's procedural threshold is intrinsically interrelated with the collegial form of organization in particular? This chapter lays the conceptual groundwork for answering these questions.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Theory of Societal ConstitutionalismFoundations of a Non-Marxist Critical Theory, pp. 131 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991