Neste artigo é investigado como para o filósofo contemporâneo alemão Axel Honneth a visão moderna e tradicional que coloca na luta por autoconservação o centro gravitacional dos conflitos sociais estaria equivocada ou ultrapassada. Também é dito como o filósofo dá sequência à tradição da Teoria Crítica a partir da análise de seus antecessores que teriam se afastado demais dos conflitos cotidianos, levando a filosofia a uma série de questões donde é incapaz de resolvê-las, gerando assim um déficit sociológico. Para superar (...) tal déficit e a ultrapassada visão do início da modernidade acerca do ser humano, a filosofia necessita dar mais atenção aos conflitos interpessoais cotidianos, que podem ser resumidos sempre a uma luta por reconhecimento, por isso seria necessário um retorno a e uma atualização da filosofia política do jovem Hegel que, entre outras coisas, aborda justamente esta ideia. (shrink)

In this article I provide an analysis of some salient concepts of dignity. The text is a development of a work which was initiated in the year 2000 in the research programme Dignity and Older Europeans supported by the European Union. The programme was both theoretical and empirical. The empirical part, which was the most comprehensive, consisted of focus-group interviews with health care and social care personnel, elderly persons within health care or social care, and representatives from the general public. (...) The interviews concerned the care of the elderly and attitudes towards the elderly. Some questions concerned how the interviewees conceived the concept of dignity and what they meant by behaviour respectful of dignity in the care of the elderly. Altogether around 1000 focus-group interviews were conducted in seven of the countries involved. The theoretical part of the programme consisted of an analysis of the concepts of dignity based on studies of dictionary entries in six languages as well as previous philosophical analyses of the concept. In the theoretical part of the study there emerged four different concepts of dignity: dignity of merit, dignity of moral standing, dignity of identity and human dignity. Characterizations of these concepts have been presented and developed in several publications, for example Nordenfelt and. In the present article this analysis is taken a step further. I take as a starting point some previous studies, including Schroeder, Sulmasy and my earlier ones, and propose an improvement and clarification of my earlier classification of dignities. At the same time I enlarge the analysis to concern worths in general and how these are attached to entities in general, not just human beings. The four kinds of dignities which I now propose are called: attributed dignity, dignity of inflorescence, dignity of identity and human dignity. (shrink)

The paper examines one possible argument against restricting the display of religious icons in Romanian public schools. Opponents of this decision claim that cult objects affirm something essential about our cultural identity and therefore that using legal instruments to protect this identity is justified. Using a differential analysis of two models of identity recognition, Charles Taylor’s and Axel Honneth’s, this paper argues that the legal protection of cultural identity is compatible with value pluralism but only if its defense is justified (...) in the terms provided by Honneth’s theory of identity recognition. However, the argument in favor of displaying icons in Romanian public schools, unlike the argument against wearing the Islamic veil in French public schools, cannot be justified in these terms. (shrink)

The notions 'worldview' and 'social identity' are examined to consider whether they contribute substantively to causal sequences or networks or thought clusters that result in group acts executed intentionally. ... Three proposed explanaitons of sectarian conflict or ethnic violence are analysed as examples of theories that causally link intenitonal group behaivour to the worldviews and social identities of the individual agents directly involved. But as will be shown, it is not a priori features of worldivews and identities as such, but (...) historically specific facts and contingent circumstances that need to be examined in order to explain group-motivated behaviour. Reference to worldviews and identities detract from adequate explanation. (shrink)