Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 5, Page 703-725, June 2022. In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example (...) of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts. (shrink)

This article compares Axel Honneth’s method of normative reconstruction with John Dewey's method of problem-solving. We argue that Dewey’s method is more open to “radical” measures of social transformation because it does not bear Honneth’s inherent conservative implications. Dewey’s “more radical” measures include, in particular, demands for a socialist transformation of the economy, whereas Honneth’s approach leads to mere reformist proposals within the existing property system, such as the introduction of a minimum wage. We situate this juxtaposition in the more (...) recent discussion on the methodology of critical theories and argue that, despite the recent turn of Critical Theorists towards Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, the potential of the latter has so far been largely neglected. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird die bislang kaum beachtete frühe Moralphilosophie von Max Horkheimer aus den 1930er Jahren in ein produktives Spannungsverhältnis zu den Grundannahmen des ethischen Naturalismus gesetzt. Horkheimer versteht die Moral als ein normatives Instrument, mit dem die menschliche Gattung ihr gesellschaftliches Leben zu organisieren versucht. Die natürliche Normativität der menschlichen Lebensform ist für Horkheimer selbst historisch bestimmt, als die menschliche Lebensform sich notwendig nur historisch realisieren kann. In der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft ist diese Normativität nach Horkheimer widersprüchlich verfasst: Einerseits (...) sollen die Menschen moralischen Normen und nicht allein ihren eigenen Interessen folgen, andererseits erfordert die bürgerliche Gesellschaft gerade das rücksichtslose Verfolgen eigener Interessen, da sonst die Selbsterhaltung der Menschen gefährdet würde. Die Auswirkungen dieser Widersprüchlichkeit werden hier anhand von drei Aspekten untersucht: die Opazität und Naturhaftigkeit der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, das Leiden der menschlichen Natur, Geschichte als Anpassungsprozess der menschlichen Natur. Abschließend wird Horkheimers Ansatz hinsichtlich seiner theoretischen Reichweite in den moralphilosophischen Diskussionen der gegenwärtigen Kritischen Theorie verortet. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of normative foundations is insoluble. I discuss how and why the apparent problem arose, particularly within the Frankfurt School. Then, I describe various theories of normative foundations and the criticisms that such theories have faced, such as ethno- and andro-centrism, imperialism, and the failure to fulfill their own aims. I make my main argument by way of an analogy: theories of knowledge have wrestled with the question of whether a “given”’ could act as a certain (...) foundation for knowledge. The conclusion is often that no given can function in that way, because the given, which supposedly does not require justification, is therefore necessarily unable to justify knowledge. For similar reasons, I argue, nothing can function as a normative foundation for a critical social theory, because any such normative foundation would have to both stand in no need of normative justification but also justify normative social criticism. I conclude by suggesting that more recent critical theory that does not focus on normative foundations can be understood as justifying their critique by appeal to what people do actually want, rather than what they should rationally want. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of normative foundations is insoluble. I discuss how and why the apparent problem arose, particularly within the Frankfurt School. Then, I describe various theories of normative foundations and the criticisms that such theories have faced, such as ethno- and andro-centrism, imperialism, and the failure to fulfill their own aims. I make my main argument by way of an analogy: theories of knowledge have wrestled with the question of whether a “given”’ could act as a certain (...) foundation for knowledge. The conclusion is often that no given can function in that way, because the given, which supposedly does not require justification, is therefore necessarily unable to justify knowledge. For similar reasons, I argue, nothing can function as a normative foundation for a critical social theory, because any such normative foundation would have to both stand in no need of normative justification but also justify normative social criticism. I conclude by suggesting that more recent critical theory that does not focus on normative foundations can be understood as justifying their critique by appeal to what people do actually want, rather than what they should rationally want. (shrink)