Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
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Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
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de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co “Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che” (IEPDP) de la Fa-
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ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas apa re ce dos ve ces al año y pu bli ca tra ba jos ori gi na les con
avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
co, los cua les son so me ti dos a la con si de ra ción de ár bi tros ca li fi ca dos.
ESTA PU BLI CA CIÓN APA RE CE RE SE ÑA DA, EN TRE OTROS ÍN DI CES, EN
:
Re vicyhLUZ, In ter na tio nal Po li ti cal Scien ce Abs tracts, Re vis ta In ter ame ri ca na de
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gra fía So cio Eco nó mi ca de Ve ne zue la de RE DIN SE, In ter na tio nal Bi blio graphy of
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Pe rio di cals Di rec tory, EBS CO. Se en cuen tra acre di ta da al Re gis tro de Pu bli ca cio-
nes Cien tí fi cas y Tec no ló gi cas Ve ne zo la nas del FO NA CIT, La tin dex.
Di rec to ra
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OIRALITH
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Vol. 41, Nº 77 (2023), 853-866
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Recibido el 26/09/22 Aprobado el 04/02/23
Recognition and normative
reconstruction as a theory of justice
in Axel Honneth
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4177.55
Paulo Vitorino Fontes *
Abstract
Based on Axel Honneth’s concept of recognition, considered
as a fundamental need of the human being, and the method of
normative reconstruction, the core of a plural theory of justice is
presented. The aim of the research was to articulate a normative
conception of justice with the sociological analysis, by means
of normative reconstruction, starting from the intersubjective
dimension of the institutions of recognition. Social freedom
presupposes access to institutions of recognition. Through
research and bibliographical analysis, within the framework
of German critical theory, a theory of justice is presented that analyzes
institutions in a broad sense, through the reconstruction of already
institutionalized practices and conditions of recognition, with a view to
social emancipation. The main conclusions lie in the signicance of the
realization of freedom in patterns, not of an individual taken in isolation,
but of social freedom expressed in a plural and expanded sense of “we”.
Thus, the spheres of realization of social freedom develop as the “we” of
personal relations, of the market and, in relation to the sphere of the state,
in the democratic formation of will.
Keywords: Axel Honneth; recognition; justice; normative reconstruction;
critical theory of society.
* PhD in Legal-Political Theory and International Relations (summa cum laude) from the University of
Évora in 2016. Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of the Azores and Integrated
Researcher at the Centre for Humanistic Studies – UAc. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
1443-6820
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Paulo Vitorino Fontes
Recognition and normative reconstruction as a theory of justice in Axel Honneth
Reconocimiento y reconstrucción normativa como
teoría de la justicia en Axel Honneth
Resumen
A partir del concepto de reconocimiento de Axel Honneth, considerado
como una necesidad fundamental del ser humano, y del método de
reconstrucción normativa, se presenta el núcleo de una teoría plural de
la justicia. El objetivo de la investigación fue articular una concepción
normativa de la justicia con el análisis sociológico, mediante la
reconstrucción normativa, a partir de la dimensión intersubjetiva de las
instituciones de reconocimiento. La libertad social presupone el acceso a
las instituciones de reconocimiento. Mediante la investigación y el análisis
bibliográco, en el marco de la teoría crítica alemana, se presenta una teoría
de la justicia que analiza las instituciones en un sentido amplio, a través
de la reconstrucción de las prácticas y condiciones de reconocimiento ya
institucionalizadas, con vistas a la emancipación social. Las principales
conclusiones residen en el signicado de la realización de la libertad en
los patrones, no de un individuo tomado aisladamente, sino de la libertad
social expresada en un sentido plural y ampliado del “nosotros”. Así, las
esferas de realización de la libertad social se desarrollan como el “nosotros”
de las relaciones personales, del mercado y, en relación con la esfera del
Estado, en la formación democrática de la voluntad.
Palabras clave: Axel Honneth; reconocimiento; justicia; reconstrucción
normativa; teoría crítica de la sociedad.
Introduction
Axel Honneth, in developing the theory of recognition, has revitalized
the reference to Hegel in contemporary political philosophy, especially
since his work The Struggle for Recognition in 1992. The theoretical
turn that Honneth imparted to critical theory consisted in developing the
Hegelian category of recognition as the conceptual tool best suited to reveal
social experiences of injustice and to understand the motivational source of
social struggles. More recently, Honneth seeks to nd, beyond a historical-
genetic explanation of social demands, a normative standpoint from which
to assess which claims are just and legitimate and which are not.
Honneth develops the core of a theory of justice that seeks to specify
the intersubjective conditions of individual self-realization, that is, a theory
of justice that is linked not to abstract models, but to a reconstruction of
already institutionalized practices and conditions of recognition, analyzing
social institutions in a broad sense. The author proposes to overcome the
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gap between a normative conception of justice and the sociological analysis
of modern societies, by proposing normative reconstruction and placing
the emphasis on social freedom, based on the intersubjective dimension of
the institutions of recognition.
1. Recognition
The idea of a struggle for recognition as a methodological key for
understanding social conicts was initially elaborated by Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1807-1992) during the period called “Jena”, as a reference
to his stay in the city of the same name, as well as to the theoretical instrument
he elaborated, as a young professor of philosophy, whose internal foundation
goes beyond the institutional horizon of his time (Honneth, (1992-2011:
13). It is from here that Honneth seeks the possibility of founding a new
social theory with normative content, along the lines of Max Horkheimer’s
earlier contribution to critical theory.
Based on a re-reading of Frankfurt theorists, Honneth proposes
the existence of three assumptions that run through his critique: (1) the
declaration of a universal reason capable of making social movements
intelligible; (2) the discordant performance of this reason as the cause of
a pathology; and (3) an emancipatory motive identied from a suering
(Honneth, 2009a: 42).
The rst two presuppositions are open-ended and, thus, it is not possible
to ascertain their empirical proof. It is only from the last theoretical
assumption that the theory can be given a positive content, object of
experimentation. In this way, Honneth proposes the construction of a
social theory with normative content, dependent on the capacity for pre-
theoretical verication of social suering, capable of informing theoretical
thinking about the pertinence of an emancipatory will in society.
However, according to Honneth ([2000] 2007: 65) the Frankfurt
School had remained stuck in Marxist historical materialism, linking
social suering to the particular issues of a class, the proletariat, to whom
it would be up to transform their suering into an emancipatory engine.
But when history had shown that the proletarian class had transformed
its suering into support for the rise of fascism, the positive tenor initially
adopted by critical theory had become ill-suited to the understanding and
transformation of society.
However, for Honneth what history shows as inadequate is only the
specic positive content adopted by the theory, which was linked to the
exploitation of labour and not its theoretical foundation, remaining open
the possibility of developing a social theory with a normative content,
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provided that it starts from suering as revealing an emancipatory will
in society. For this thinker, without some kind of proof that the critical
perspective of theory is reinforced by a movement in social reality, critical
theory can no longer be followed in contemporaneity, since it would not be
possible to distinguish it from other models of social criticism, either by its
claim to a superior sociological method or by its philosophical procedures
of justication. For Honneth ([2000] 2007: 66), it is only by its attempt,
which has not yet been abandoned, to provide critique with an objective
grounding in pre-theoretical praxis that critical theory can be said to be
unique and alive.
In Honneth’s (1992-2011) theoretical extension, we perceive an eort
to conceptualise the three spheres of recognition: Love, Law and Social
Esteem, initially identied by Hegel. These spheres of interaction, through
the cumulative acquisition of self-condence, self-respect and self-esteem,
create not only the social conditions for individuals to arrive at a positive
attitude towards themselves, but also give rise to the autonomous individual.
The sphere of love constitutes the primary aective relations of
mutual recognition that structure the individual from birth, and which
are dependent on a fragile balance between autonomy and attachment.
According to Honneth (1992-2011), the symbiotically nurtured bond, which
is formed by an initially reciprocally desired boundary between mother and
child, creates the dimension of individual self-condence, which will be the
fundamental basis for autonomous participation in public life.
From the normative perspective of the generalised other, which teaches
us to recognise others as holders of rights, we are allowed to understand
ourselves as legal persons. The sphere of law develops in a historical
process, its development potential is veried in the generalization and
materialization of legal recognition relations (Honneth, 1992-2011).
In order to achieve an uninterrupted self-relationship, human subjects
also always need, in addition to the experience of aective dedication and
juridical recognition, a social esteem that allows them to relate positively
to their concrete properties and capacities. We are in the sphere of social
esteem, of a third relation of reciprocal recognition, on the assumption of
symmetrical valuation, individuals consider each other in the light of values
that make manifest the capacities and properties of themselves and the
other as important for the common experience.
The symmetrical relationship does not mean reciprocal valuing in equal
measure, but rather the challenge that any subject has the opportunity
to experience himself as valuable to society through his capacities and
properties. Only then, following Honneth’s (1992-2011) reasoning, under
the notion of solidarity can social relations access a horizon in which
individual competition for social valuation can be free from experiences of
disrespect.
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In the succession of the three forms of recognition, the degree of the
person’s positive relationship with himself increases progressively. With
each level of mutual regard, the subjective autonomy of the individual also
grows. Similarly, parallel experiences of social disrespect can be attributed
to the corresponding forms of mutual recognition.
In his article “Invisibilité: sur l’épistémologie de la reconnaissance”,
Honneth (2005) presents invisibility as the negation of the notion of
recognition. The concept and the beginning of the discussion are inspired
by Ralph Ellison’s book El hombre invisible (1984) and is based on the
experience of a black character who suers a process of “invisibilization”
by white society.
Using a metaphorical idea, Honneth shows that invisibility is an active
process in which contempt is evidenced: a behaviour concerning a person
as if he were not and which, for him, becomes very real. Visibility, on the
contrary, means recognising the relevant characteristics of a person. In this
way, Honneth (2005) presents individual identiability as the rst form of
knowledge. This stage is already considered a social act, since the aected
individual knows of his or her invisibility by the lack of specic reactions
on the part of the other or others. Besides, the lack of expressive acts of
visibility may also be perceived by the other people present. Therefore, one
can speak of a social invisibility, which leads Honneth to a dierentiation
between “knowing” and “recognising”: “knowing” is then the non-public
identication of an individual, while “recognising” refers to appreciation
as a public act.
In an analogous way to Daniel Stern’s ([1985] 1992) contributions on the
interpersonal development of infants, Honneth claims that for adults too
there are signs that openly show whether they have been socially approved.
As evidence one can consider precisely that feeling which is produced
in situations where a person is denied this approval. All expressions of
approval are interpreted as a sign, in a symbolically abbreviated form, of
a whole series of dispositions that refer to a set of performances that can
be legitimately expected in future interactions, such as being treated with
respect.
Following the argument of Struggle for Recognition, Honneth ([1992]
2011) adds to the elementary form of recognition through love the ideas of
respect and solidarity, which place people in distinct constellations with
dierent performances that can be legitimately expected. All of them go
beyond the mere armation of the existence of the other, that is, of what
is meant by “knowing”, since they show a motivational disposition towards
the other that supposes a restriction of one’s own egocentric perspective
and with which we grant the other a moral authority over us in interaction.
Social invisibility then appears as the denial of social recognition.
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For Honneth (2005) human subjects are visible to another subject
insofar as the latter can identify them, according to the characteristics of the
relationship, as persons clearly dened by properties, that is, when our social
interaction partners recognise our singularities and qualities. According to
Honneth (2005: 42), “cultural history oers numerous examples in which
the dominator expresses his social superiority by appearing not to perceive
those he dominates”. A subject can attest to his visibility if he forces his
social interaction partner to recognize the properties and singularities that
form his identity.
From Honneth’s historical-theoretical research (2008: 71) stands
out the consequence, and to some extent the presupposition, that “in the
relation of human beings to their world, recognising (Anerkennen) always
precedes knowing (Erkennen), so that by reication we must understand
a violation against this order of precedence.” Spontaneous, somewhat
unconscious and irrational recognition, what the author calls a “pre-
cognitive realisation of the act of assuming a certain stance” (Honneth,
2008: 73), which leads to accepting the other’s perspective after previously
recognising in him a familiar intentionality, is presented as a presupposition
of human interaction. This action is neither rational nor does it congure
“any awareness of motives” (2008: 73).
This attitude for Honneth is not normatively oriented, although it
does lead us towards some form of position-taking, which is by no means
predetermined. The non-epistemic character of this elementary form of
recognition is emphasised, for which reason the author sets before the
dierentiated spheres of recognition a stage of recognition, which appears
as a kind of transcendental condition: the spontaneous recognition, not
rationally achieved, of the other as a neighbour represents a necessary
presupposition in order to be able to appropriate moral values, in the light
of which we recognise that other in a determined, normative way (Honneth,
2008: 73)
In the absence of the experience of closeness and/or similarity to the
other, we could not endow the relationship with moral values ordering our
actions. Thus, in the rst place, elementary recognition is necessary, “we
must existentially take part (Anteilnehmen) in the other before we can learn
to be guided by norms of recognition” (Honneth, 2008: 73) that bind us to
certain ways of acting. In the process of socialization, individuals learn to
internalize the culture-specic recognition norms of their culture; in this
way they enrich step by step that elementary representation of the other,
which is available to them by habit from an early age, with those specic
values that are embodied in the principles of recognition prevailing within
their society. (Honneth, 2008: 74).
What normative principles are presupposed in relation to the human
being when claiming that he always refers to others in a “recognizing”
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(anerkennend) way? The answer to this question constitutes a central
concern in Honneth’s reection as he contributes to a theory of human
intersubjectivity. Honneth attempts to guide sociological analysis in the
study of normative claims to recognition.
Axel Honneth in his book “Crítica del agravio moral” (2009b) also
presents us with a theoretical proposal for the recognition of moral oence
and the expansion of democratic solidarity. Honneth develops a perspective
in which moral oence is not a simple antecedent of reciprocal violence, nor
only the reverse side of formal justice, which would have to punish in order
to compensate for the damage inicted on people’s legal rights. But it seems
important to interpret the moral consequences that interpersonal moral
oence and conicts over recognition play in the process of subjectivation.
Honneth aims to recover the ethical potential underlying the processes
of struggle for intersubjective recognition that are developed from the
experience of vulnerability and violation of personal integrity; these aim to
expand the horizons of the forms of moral relationship - aection, respect
and solidarity - and of the reciprocal bonds, which sustain our integrity in
the form of self-condence, self-respect and self-esteem.
In this sense, experiences of contempt and moral violation and the
resulting feelings of injustice are the sources of normative claims for
recognition, which expand reciprocal bonds and the sense of social
recognition. Thus, moral violations oer a more adequate normative
standard and source of practical motivation for Honneth (2009b) than the
principles of conventional justice.
Alongside the three spheres of recognition listed above, Honneth
(2009b: 322) distinguishes three forms of moral violation: rstly, forms of
oence that deprive a person of the security of his or her physical well-being,
as occurs with physical mistreatment, torture, rape and murder. Secondly,
the forms of contempt for people’s moral responsibility, which destroy self-
respect, such as through fraud, deceit, failing to keep one’s commitments,
etc. Finally, there is a form of contempt that involves the humiliation of the
other and a serious lack of respect, ranging from indierence and invisibility
to the stigmatisation of the other.
For Honneth (2009b) it is fundamental to attend to the expression of
feelings of contempt and injustice, since from their interpretation it will
be possible to deepen the democratic forms of intersubjective recognition
of all people and to minimise the possibilities of being aected by social
injustice.
Thus, for Honneth, experiences of disrespect constitute the moral
basis of the struggle for recognition of individuals, going beyond certain
institutionalized standards. We can point to the feminist movement and
those of colonized peoples as historical examples, which demonstrate
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Recognition and normative reconstruction as a theory of justice in Axel Honneth
that this moral substratum is capable of considering the totality of forms
of social injustice, resulting from the depreciation of certain standards
of social esteem. For Honneth, it is only through a normative paradigm
that goes beyond historical contingencies that the broad scale of human
suering can be examined and provide the moral foundation necessary to
renew critical theory.
For Honneth the practice of deviant behaviour would not only result in a
social reproach, but in preventing the individual from a positive recognition
of himself in his action. This opens up the possibility of a transformation of
the collective ethic that allows the realisation of the Self. In this sense, the
struggle for social recognition of the particularities of the subject would be
the constant engine of transformation of the ethical framework of a society,
so as to include forms of individuality that in a given circumstance are the
object of precarious recognition.
2. Recognition, normative reconstruction and justice
In order to rebuild the foundation of a social theory with normative
content, along the lines of the project previously developed by Horkheimer
for critical theory, Honneth recovered the Hegelian philosophical project of
a struggle for recognition. Although at rst, he conned himself to seeking
its bases in the thought of the young Hegel, in more recent works (Honneth,
([2001] 2007, [2001] 2010), the author attempts to link that intersubjective
struggle to the conception of freedom formulated by the mature Hegel, in
opposition to the atomistic visions of Kant and Fichte.
Honneth states that Hegel’s theory of justice has in common with the
thought of these authors the centrality of the idea of equal individual
freedom for all. However, his theory distinguishes itself from them by
conceiving of freedom as something that goes beyond a simple subjective
right or a simple moral autonomy. For Hegel, adopting either of these views
of the concept of freedom in isolation would lead to the social pathologies
resulting from the violation of the “absolute spirit” (Honneth, [2001]
2010: 25). In this Hegelian thesis, although metaphysical in character and
historically situated, Honneth considers that there is a critical core that
should be transported to our days.
Starting from these principles, Honneth ([2001] 2007: 52 ) begins a
work of re-updating Hegel’s theory of right through three stages. In the
rst, he presents a theory of justice, starting from the Hegelian concept of
“free will” which, having been conceptualised in opposition to atomistic
perspectives, determines the total scope of what we should call “right”. The
diculty of this fundamental intuition is related to the Hegelian thesis that
the “will has itself as an object” (p. 59). Honneth interprets this idea on the
basis of the Hegelian denition of love: “Being oneself in the other”.
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With this interpretation the focus shifts to the existence of social and
institutional conditions, seen as fundamental, as these should enable the
communicative relations of the subjects. For Honneth ([2001] 2007),
those spheres, expressed in institutions and systems of practices, which are
irreplaceable for socially enabling individual self-determination, are the
authentic bearers of rights. In this way, philosophy of law is understood as
the theory of the social conditions of possibility of the realisation of the “free
will”. Which goes in the direction of a normative theory of social justice.
From this perspective, Hegel’s theory of law is structured in three
divisions. “Abstract law” and “Morality” are the rst two, in which Hegel
deals with the incomplete conditions of realisation of the free will, in the
form that it takes, respectively, of modern rights or the capacity for moral
self-determination. In the third part, ‘Ethicity’, he deals with the complete
conditions, distinguishing three spheres of communicative action: the
family, civil society and the state. From here onwards the theory of justice
is articulated with the diagnosis of the time, constituting the second stage
of Honneth’s re-updating proposal.
By updating the doctrine of ethics in a normative theory of modernity,
Honneth establishes self-realisation and recognition as fundamental
conditions. Only in an action whose execution is characterised by compliance
with certain moral norms can a subject ensure being recognised by others,
because this recognition is determined precisely by moral competences,
which are established through the corresponding norms of action (Honneth,
[2001] 2007: 86).
Thus, the normative content of ethics is an articulation of the forms of
intersubjective action that can guarantee recognition due to their moral
quality. In this sense, the family, civil society and the state are constituted
as social spheres, with elds of practices, which may guarantee individual
freedom in their modern congurations that articulate recognition,
formation and self-realisation.
The renewed theory of the struggle for recognition appears as a model
for understanding social conicts as ethical claims that contribute to the
expansion of the possibilities of subjectivation and change the ethical
framework of the whole.
Transgression, thus, points to the ethical insuciency of the collective,
not of the individual transgressor. The focus of the law’s intervention is
inverted, no longer centred on the individual, on the need to adapt him to
social conventions, but on society, on its need to recognise and include the
most diverse modes of existence, guaranteeing them from physical survival
to the valorisation of their singularity.
In view of the revision of the initial project of Struggle for Recognition,
after almost twenty years, it is possible to understand El derecho de la
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Recognition and normative reconstruction as a theory of justice in Axel Honneth
libertad, esbozo de una ética democrática ([2011] 2014) as the rst book
in which Honneth reworks his theory in a systematic way. In this sense,
the concept of recognition starts to full another role: if, in his habilitation
thesis, Honneth develops a typology of the forms of recognition, articulating
more properly a relation between theory of subjectivity and social theory,
his attention turns, now, to an analysis of a theory of justice supported by
a critical theory of society, whose central concept becomes that of freedom
- understood, more specically, from the idea of social freedom, where the
spheres of a theory of democratic ethics (demokratische Sittlichkeit) are
discussed.
In this sense, the suggestive title of the book points to a signicant
change in the face of recurrent models in the debate on theories of justice.
It is a matter, therefore, of shifting the emphasis on the juridication
and procedure of justice to the reconstruction of the ways of realising the
concept of individual freedom mediated socially and institutionally.
It is noteworthy, here, the importance that the author gives to the
sense of individual freedom as a presupposition for the task of a normative
reconstruction. In this sense, Honneth ([2011] 2014: 31-32) states that:
In social modernity, the demand for justice can only be legitimised when,
in one way or another, the autonomy of the individual is neither the will of the
community nor the natural order, but individual freedom which congures the
normative cornerstone of all representations of justice.
But it is only in the third part of the book that we nd the propositional
core of Honneth’s project ([2011] 2014). And it is in this part that the
author, in distinction from the sense of possibility of freedom referring to
moral and juridical freedoms, nds the meaning of “realization of freedom”
in the standards not of an individual taken in isolation, but of social
freedom expressed in a plural and expanded sense of “we” (das “Wir”). In
this way, the spheres of realisation of social freedom, following closely in
the footsteps of the Hegelian theory of ethics, are developed as the “we” of
personal relations (pp. 174 .), of the market (pp. 232 .) and, in relation to
the sphere of the state, in the democratic formation of the will (pp. 339 .).
With regard to the family, in turn, Honneth observes the structural
changes that have occurred throughout modernity, showing the plural
forms of conception around the family model. Here, the discussion between
the spheres of family and work stands out, in which aective relations are
combined with new roles played as a result of struggles for the emancipation
of women.
At the same time, the author discusses the importance of seeing the
aective care and upbringing of children by parents as a social contribution
and at a later point, with increased life expectancy, the care of parents by
their children, who, in a certain sense, “become ‘parents’ of their parents”
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(Honneth, [2011] 2014: 226). And here, in the face of imminent death,
Honneth nds in the sense of “consolation” (p. 227) a secular way, full
of aective content, of dealing with the transitoriness of life. The author
argues that both consequences should be taken into account by a public
policy model (pp. 227 .).
If, in relation to the family, the normative reconstruction proposed
by Honneth does not encounter major diculties, the discussion about
the market probably presents one of the most controversial parts. In
eect, Honneth sees the market as a space of social freedom insofar as it
would make possible the reciprocal satisfaction of individual needs and
preferences and, in this sense, the reference to the market is inseparable
from a discussion about its moral content: market relations can only be
legitimate if they are able to full such demands. The evident contradictions
and exhaustion of the market in its current model in satisfying individual
demands are problems occurring in its own development and preventing
the realisation of its normative potential.
It is not clear, however, whether the problems of development are
inherent in the capitalist mode of production - as in a Marxist analysis
to which the author himself also refers - or whether there should be a
kind of correction derived from an internal revision of capitalism. What
Honneth proposes is to revise the necessary moral presuppositions so that
the market, too, can ensure the socially mediated satisfaction of individual
preferences.
And in this sense, Honneth refers to the so-called “Adam-Smith problem”
([2011] 2014: 238) - around the question of the link between moral theory
and Smith’s economic theory - defending the interpretation that a free
market can only be founded if preconditions linked to a moral content are
fullled - as suggested by the concepts of “empathy” in Smith, “solidarity”
in Durkheim or “trust” in Hegel. (pp. 248 .). Thus, for example, Honneth
argues, in defence of a “solidarity consciousness”, prior also to contractual
relations, that:
…in the language chosen by Hegel it is possible to express the idea that the
coordination of the simple calculations of individual preferences proceeded in the
framework of the market can only succeed if the subjects involved are recognized
not only legally as contract partners, but also morally and ethically (“sittlich”)
as members of a community of cooperation (“kooperierenden Gemeinwesen”).
(Honneth, [2011] 2014: 248)
Honneth in an interview with Gustavo Pereira (2010: 333) presents us
with an idea of post-traditional extended ethicity, along Hegelian lines,
which includes private life, forms of intimate relationships and, what
becomes important here, certain forms of economic life. The author argues
that we should have ethicity in economic life. The market should have a
normative form. The neoliberal market we have today is not an ethical form
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Recognition and normative reconstruction as a theory of justice in Axel Honneth
of market. Already Hegel and later Durkheim had had this idea, that the
capitalist economic market will only have an ethical form if it is regulated
in a sense of inclusion of each and every person. That every human being
is specically included in the market, so that corresponding forms of social
esteem are possible.
As far as we can see, the Honnethian bet on normative reconstruction is
not immune to criticism. And here we could basically name two problems or
limitations. The rst, already mentioned, is the fundamentally Eurocentric
sense of the reconstruction that Honneth proposes. A second problem
consists in a necessary starting point taken for the proposed reconstruction.
In eect, the author needs to resort to a certain sense of helos that justies
the criteria of his reconstruction: it is only by already taking the concept
of social freedom beforehand that it is possible to reconstruct institutional
frameworks in a certain way linked to that concept.
Final considerations
Axel Honneth presents a concept of social struggle that emphasizes
the ethical dimension of injustice, proposing new parameters for Critical
Theory. His proposal consists in analysing the concrete patterns of
disrespect that lead individuals to social struggles for recognition, in which
there is a continuous broadening of the perceptions that individuals have of
their unique attributes.
On the basis of an analysis of Honneth’s bibliographical path initiated in
the concept of recognition, seen as a fundamental need of the human being,
a theory of justice is presented which seeks to specify the intersubjective
conditions of individual self-realisation. Honneth’s (2009c: 16) conception
of justice is based, rstly, on replacing the distributive scheme with the
conception of an inclusion of all subjects in the relations of recognition
developed in each situation; secondly, in place of the construction of a
ctitious procedure a normative reconstruction should be placed that reveals
historically-genetically the fundamental moral norms of those relations of
recognition; and, nally, the exclusive look at the regulatory activity of the
rule of law should be complemented by a decentralised consideration of
non-state agencies and organisations.
A reconstructively proceeding theory of justice is today faced with the
challenge of defending in the name of individual autonomy not just one
normative principle, but three such principles: depending on the respective
social sphere, it must highlight and strengthen the moral standpoints of
deliberative equality, the justice of needs, and the justice of performance.
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A pluralism of these, however dicult it may seem to handle, meets the
dierentiations that the subjects themselves operate topically in questions
of justice; as a number of empirical surveys show today, they too usually
distinguish in cooperation-related problems in their everyday life precisely
the three areas mentioned, in order to apply the corresponding principle of
justice to each of them (Honneth, 2009: 21).
We can state that Honneth’s thought represents a decisive contribution
to the contemporary debate on theories of justice and political philosophy
by questioning positions already taken as presuppositions in much of this
debate, seeking to oer a response of its own within the framework of a
renewed political philosophy (Fontes, 2021). The author’s starting point of
developing a theory of justice in the footsteps of a critical analysis of society
therefore remains promising, even if Honneth’s attempt is historically
dependent on its own context.
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
en abril de 2023, por el Fondo Editorial Serbiluz,
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela
Vol.41 Nº 77