The Importance of Consequences

Habermas would say that it's clearly communicative action, even if the person on the other side has to ascend to it. That guy is not going to do any pushups unless in some fundamentally rational way. He agrees to do it. This is the most basic bottom line version of agreement. It is not necessarily even a sense that he should have to do it, but he's doing it. The Frankfurt School spent a lot of time and effort trying to figure out why people thought Hitler was a great idea. Or the people who were normally self-legislators aren't truly making a free, informed choice.