It was a theory that criticized social life and diagnosed the ills of modern society by identifying the changes necessary in order to create a more democratic society (Layder 2000:186-187). It was from this theory that Habermas started dealing with the interactions and behaviors between people in society. He claimed that behaviors in society were based on self-interest. Through interaction, a development of goal-oriented action would emerge and be put into effect. Habermas then developed the idea of communicative rationality (Layder 2000:188-189). This theory is concerned with the way people in interaction are trying to achieve a shared understanding. The development of a shared agreement of the idea is not what is important. According to Habermas, it was the ways in which people are trying to achieve the shared meaning through interaction (Layder 2000:188-190). From communicative rationality comes the development of communicative action. Communicative action is the coordination of the activities of two or more people on the basis of a shared understanding such that each person tries to convince the others with the effect that the resulting action is motivated through rationality or reason (Layder 2000:188-190). By the way of communicative rationality comes a shared understanding. Through this shared understanding, people will perform an action with the notion that the action stemmed from rational and logical reason. Habermas says that in order for communicative action to occur, there needs to be a shared agreement by all people on all levels of validity claims. There are three different types of validity claims. These validity claims, which are also known as the three worlds, are the objective and external world, the social world, and the subjective experience (Layder 2000:190-191). The objective, external world states that validity claims are based on the most efficient, i.e. cost/benefit, way of achieving some desired state of affairs.
