Die Theorie der Gerechtigkeit gehört zu den am intensivsten bestellten Feldern der zeitgenössischen Philosophie. Allerdings haben die meisten Gerechtigkeitstheorien ihr hohes Begründungsniveau nur um den Preis eines schweren Defizits erreicht, denn mit ihrer Fixierung auf rein normative, abstrakte Prinzipien geraten sie in beträchtliche Distanz zu jener Sphäre, die ihr”Anwendungsbereich“ist: der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit. Zur Begründung dieses weitreichenden Unterfangens weist Honneth zunächst nach, daß alle wesentlichen Handlungssphären westlicher Gesellschaften ein Merkmal teilen: Sie haben den Anspruch, einen jeweils besonderen Aspekt von individueller Freiheit (...) zu verwirklichen. Im Geiste von Hegels Rechtsphilosophie und unter anerkennungstheoretischen Vorzeichen zeigt das zentrale Kapitel, wie in konkreten gesellschaftlichen Bereichen - in persönlichen Beziehungen, im marktvermittelten Wirtschaftshandeln und in der politischen Öffentlichkeit - die Prinzipien individueller Freiheit generiert werden, die die Richtschnur für Gerechtigkeit bilden. Das Ziel des Buches ist ein höchst anspruchsvolles: die Gerechtigkeitstheorie als Gesellschaftsanalyse neu zu begründen. (shrink)

Rather, in all the texts of this period Marx tries to mount a compelling critique of the present while altogether avoiding the dilemmas central to philosophy in ...

Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not (...) give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms be desirable across society as a whole? Why not? Whole societies may differ from camping trips, but it is still attractive when people treat each other with the equal regard that such trips exhibit. But, however desirable it may be, many claim that socialism is impossible. Cohen writes that the biggest obstacle to socialism isn't, as often argued, intractable human selfishness--it's rather the lack of obvious means to harness the human generosity that is there. Lacking those means, we rely on the market. But there are many ways of confining the sway of the market: there are desirable changes that can move us toward a socialist society in which, to quote Albert Einstein, humanity has "overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development.". (shrink)

Arguably, there is no gesture more typical to philosophy than its repudiation, the sense that philosophical endeavor is a symptom of the pathologies or dislocations of everyday life it seeks to remedy. Throughout the nineteenth century—in the writings of the German Romantics, Young Hegelians, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—the repudiation of philosophy is a constant. Sometimes this repudiation takes a reflective form in which traditional philosophical claims are translated into another vocabulary, or are deflated ; sometimes alternative methods are adopted that (...) attempt to undermine, explain away, what is thought of as uniquely philosophical; sometimes rhetorical strategies are adopted that aim to bring about a “conversion” in the reader away from philosophy and toward a more fully immanent or existential self-understanding; and sometimes that more everyday self-understanding that is to be the antidote to philosophical reflection is construed as not yet available but would come to be in an ideal or utopian future if particular radical transformations of current practices were accomplished. Apart from Kierkegaard, these attempts typically construe themselves as continuous with the critique of religion, as if philosophy were nothing but religious excess in rational dress, and thus continuous with modernity’s drive toward secularity. Because the stakes of repudiation are inevitably normative—the protest against philosophy for the sake of a more “realistic,” more truly natural or historical, conception of what is rational or good—the critique of philosophy becomes, despite itself, philosophical, burdened with presuppositions it can neither sustain nor forgo. In brief, this is the lesson of Daniel Brudney’s meticulous and patient excavation of the writings of the young Marx. (shrink)

This study examines the philosophical foundations of Hegel's social theory by articulating the normative standards at work in his claim that the central social institutions of the modern era are rational or good.

In this paper I examine Habermas’ conception of the market in The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA). Habermas’ characterization of the market as norm-free has been controversial and I discuss three objections to it: the claims that it (1) conflates of action types, types of action coordination and spheres of action, (2) cannot account for the normative structure of the social organization of labour, and (3) that it makes impossible to make moral judgments about behaviour in the market. I conclude (...) that while some of these objections are unfounded, we have reason to revise Habermas’ substantive claims about the market. I also stress the importance of distinguishing between the TCA’s methodology and its time-diagnostic thrust. Next, I assess the colonization thesis through a case study of the commodification of higher education. I conclude that this thesis remains plausible, but that it needs to be supplemented with a theory of ideology. (shrink)

The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their “field of application” - namely, social reality. Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within Western (...) liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms “democratic ethical life”: a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established. Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel’s _Philosophy of Right_ and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society. (shrink)

Neuhouser’s book is one of the most important contributions to the revival of Hegelian philosophy that has been taking place in Anglo-American philosophy over the last few years. Much of the debate in moral and political philosophy of the last few years has been set in terms of “the right” versus “the good,” and it is tempting to want to put Hegel in one of those categories and thereby also to classify him as either a “liberal,” a “communitarian,” or perhaps (...) a “romantic.” Neuhouser develops a powerful case for understanding him as none of these things. Instead he wants to understand Hegel as developing a social and political philosophy around the central conception of “self-determi- nation.” At first blush, that makes Hegel sound very much like the post-Kantian many now take him to be, but Neuhouser argues that, however true that might be, Hegel is best understood as continuing and developing certain key Rousseauian insights. In Neuhouser’s treatment, both Hegel and Kant are “post- Rousseauians,” and his understanding of what this means throws new and great light on understanding why Hegel’s social philosophy may still be of importance to us. (shrink)