Applying Habermas in Debates

It is only a few years ago since I learned about Jürgen Habermas' division of statements into constative, normative, and expressive statements, and today I wish this would be mandatory education in school. I often engage in debates, but more often than not, the debate falls apart because people apply normative or expressive values in constative utterances, and one just can't use morals or personal taste in fields that deal with cold facts.

To briefly summarize, the statements can be classified as follows:

Constative statements—which can be objectively evaluated as true or false. For example, the statements: "the light is on" or "the Moon is made of cheese" can be determined to be right or wrong no matter what people might think of it.

Normative statements—whose truthfulness require a consensus among a group of people. For example, to determine whether the statements: "murder is bad" or "Republicans do good for the country" are true or false, you must consult the opinion formed by a group of people.

Expressive statements—which are a matter of personal taste. For example, the statements: "I like strawberries" or "I believe in fate" are statements whose truthfulness depend just on the person making the statements. It would not matter if most people thought strawberries tasted awful, or if science could somehow define an objective metric for good taste, because this person would still like strawberries.

There is nothing wrong with supporting normative or expressive statements with constative knowledge. For example, one may argue that cooperation is beneficial (a normative, subjective statement) because game theory indicates that cooperative strategies are advantageous (an objective, constative statement). People often back their opinions with facts that they believe support their opinions.

Problems arise when it turns out that their original, constative statement, which they thought proved their opinion beyond doubt, can be refuted. Then they quickly find another "final" constative argument that "proves" their opinion right. After just two or three attempts where their constative statements backing their normative statements have been rejected, it is clear that all they had was an opinion, and never really had any reason for having that opinon.

If one's morals or ethics (which one might refer to as "normative behavior" or "normative opinion") are to be based on axioms or "natural" causes, then they must necessarily be corollaries of constative statements. If one takes the opposite direction—that is, if one attempts to find constative statements that support a normative opinion—then one attempts to alter reality to fit one's opinions.

There is probably nothing wrong with having opinions that are just that. It is just frustrating to engage in a debate with people with unfounded opinions who misuse the realm of constative statements to argue that their personal tastes express objective or general truths.