Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Rejoinder
Axel Honneth
Philosophy, Columbia University/Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main
In this paper, Axel Honneth replies to the five critical accounts of Freedoms
Right contained in this issue of Critical Horizons. He first discusses the
methodological and systematic objections raised by Schaub and Freyenha-
gen, and then defends his approach vis-a-vis the other three critical accounts
with reference to two social spheres the sphere of personal relationships in
the case of McNeill and McNay, and the market sphere in the case of Jutten.
Among the significant clarifications of his account, Honneth accepts that he
should allow for the possibility of institutional revolutions (while accepting a
version of Hegels end of history thesis in respect with normative revolutions)
and that there could be social pathologies (not just misdevelopments) in the
spheres of social freedom. He also distinguishes more explicitly between
capitalism and market societies, suggesting that market socialism might be
more institutionally suited to realize social freedom in the social spheres of
production and consumption than capitalism is. He insists on the
distinctiveness of modern friendships; the moral superiority of modern
societies based on social freedom; and the need for a teleological orientation
in our critical engagement with social phenomena such as gender inequality.
Even more so than during the conference in London,1 where the objections against
certain premises of my arguments in Freedoms Right here collected were first
presented, reading the papers in this issue gave me a strange, disconcerting
feeling of having my own intellectual self-understanding undermined or inverted.2
1
All of the papers, except the one by Fabian Freyenhagen, were presented at a symposium on Axel Honneths book
Freedoms Right held in London on 6 7 May, 2014.
2
[Translators note: Axel Honneths original German text is both eloquent and precise. As anyone who has translated from
German will know, it is very difficult to preserve both of these qualities jointly when rendering into English. One is usually
required to trade one virtue off against the other. Wherever tradeoffs were to be made, I have for the most part erred on the
side of ensuring that the texture of the original German shows through, even where this might at points call for unwieldy or
unnatural sentence constructions. Similarly, I have not inserted additional paragraph breaks. Some longer sentences,
however, have been broken up into smaller ones. Geist and Recht, two German terms with significantly broader webs of
connotation than their literal English equivalents, have been translated as context dictates, but where appropriate their use is
flagged up in the body of the main text in square brackets. (I believe it is always appropriate in the case of the tricky term
Geist). This also applies to those locutions which could not be rendered directly (e.g. Unuberschreitbarkeit). I am grateful
to Fabian Freyenhagen and Jorg Schaub, and my colleagues Christian Piller and James Clarke at York, all of whom offered
advice on the rendering of certain passages; any remaining infelicities are mine alone.]
The philosopher I find criticized in this issues five contributions is not the left-
Hegelian I have always taken myself to be, but rather one of those right-Hegelians
I have never taken the trouble to explicitly distance myself from, as the difference
between my work and theirs has always appeared all too obvious. For those
unfamiliar with what is at stake in marking this difference between the two
Hegelian traditions,3 this might help the comparison; I find myself perceived all of a
sudden as a staunch defender of the contemporary social order, having previously
been understood as a radical reformer. Partially in the interest of self-protection,
then, I will here use my responses to my critics to show that the way I develop and
make use of immanent criticism in Freedoms Right leaves no question of there
being any break or sudden change in my theoretical and political beliefs. I believe
I still stand in line with my earlier self, and that my latest book Freedoms Right is
continuous with my previous work, since it develops with all the immanence of the
underlying method a critical perspective that transcends the social order.
However, before I move to convince my critics of the possibility of such a reading of
my new book, I would first like to take the opportunity to thank those responsible for
the conference in London, and the resultant special issue of Critical Horizons, for their
work. It is immensely gratifying for any author to experience his work being discussed
by a circle of younger, highly competent colleagues, even when he finds his own view of
it does not match up completely with theirs. It gently compels the author to reconsider
his work, and to see if it meets up with the goals he had set for it, or if it stands in need of
clarification and correction. I would like to thank Manuel Dries, Fabian Freyenhagen,
Jorg Schaub and Joseph Schear for subjecting me to such gentle compulsion the plan
to organize a conference in London can be traced back to their initiative, the effect of
which is now before you in printed form. I must also thank the other three participants,
who have, through their objections and queries, saved me from the illusion of a
complete accord between my understanding of my work and that of other people.
In my response, I will first deal with certain methodological concerns which have
been raised about the approach to social criticism at the basis of Freedoms Right, and
then turn to objections which have been raised against my treatment of particular
social spheres. This approach in descending from the general to the particular is
certainly not Hegelian, nor in line with my theoretical disposition. All the same,
it cannot be avoided: only the methodological approach of the complete work can
make comprehensible why I have chosen to analyse the individual spheres of action
in the way that I have.
I
Of the objections raised in this special issue, it is probably those of Jorg Schaub
which initially gave me the strongest cause to doubt whether I could still understand
myself as furthering the tradition of Critical Theory. This is not to say that
continuing to work in the tradition in which one has grown up would automatically
be a legitimate undertaking, or an achievement of any sort; on the contrary, it is an
3
Cf. Karl Lowith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1991).
206 AXEL HONNETH
4
A similar accusation is made, if I am right, by Albrecht Wellmer in On Critical Theory, Social Research 81, no. 3
(Fall 2014): 705 33.
REJOINDER 207
5
I have previously developed the following thoughts in an issue of the online journal Krisis, in a written reply to
criticisms of my book raised at a conference in Amsterdam. See Axel Honneth, Replies (Dossier: The Right of
Freedom), in Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy 1 (2013): 37 47; www.krisis.eu.
6
Rolf Horstmann/Dina Emundts, G. W. F. Hegel. Eine Einfuhrung (Stuttgart: Reclaim, 2002), especially 32 ff.
7
Even Marx based Capital on this Hegelian way of thinking, when he assumed that economic capital had the power
to transform all social reality.
8
John Dewey, The Collected Works of John Dewey: 1929, The Quest for Certainty v. 4: The Later Works, 1925-1953
(John Dewey the Later Works, 1925-1953) (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), Chapters 8 and 9.
208 AXEL HONNETH
9
Cf. the highly interesting work of Michael Nance in Honneths Democratic Sittlichkeit and Market Socialism, Ms.
2014.
REJOINDER 209
constitution of the various normative spheres of action. In other words, one should
not recklessly rule out ex ante the possibility that the institutional form of
normatively integrated spheres of action might change under the pressure of social
struggle. These spheres of action could change and assume a fundamentally
different form in the division of labour, and in social role-patterns.
However, Schaub now calls for a reconstruction carried out with critical
intent, which not only takes into account the possibility of such institutional
revolutions but also the possibility of a normative revolution. What this means
is that the analysis should not from the outset, due to its methodological structure,
rule out the possibility of changes in the normative framework of societies. Here we
can introduce a second consideration, arising from an abstract reading of Hegels
dubious dictum of the End of History. What if Hegel did not in fact want to
advance the odd, and certainly false, claim that with the beginning of the era of
institutionalized subjectivity, social struggles had come to end, but was rather
advancing the different, weaker, claim that we are utterly incapable of imagining a
future in which the principle of free subjectivity is replaced by some higher, superior
principle? The talk of the end of history would then only mean that we have good
cause to rule out the possibility of a revolution in the normative structure of
society; and that, while struggles and bitter disputes over the proper
implementation of our modern fundamental principles may well continue, they
will not exceed the normative horizon of modern society.10
There are two kinds of reasons which speak in favour of this latter claim the
first historico-empirical and the second, as it were, metaphysical. I have brought
both of these into play in my book, if only allusively and incompletely. There is a
great deal of historical and empirical evidence that all struggles for a better future
in modern societies essentially rely on those principles which have been derived
from the notion of freedom. Exceptions to this rule can probably only be found
in the ecological and climate change movements; it is difficult, but perhaps not
impossible, to demonstrate some implicit relation to the freedom principle in these
cases. Outside of these cases, however, I only see clear evidence for my position
whether it is the Abolitionist struggle against slavery;11 the labour movements fight
against the unfreedom of wage labour; the Feminist movements work for the
emancipation and equality of women; or the struggle of homosexuals against their
legal and cultural discrimination, all these movements appeal to or invoke, in one
way or another, the principles of freedom as they are found in our social
institutions. It seems to me that there is no normative alternative to the freedom
principle; even where social or economic equality is called for, this appeal will
ultimately be based on an appeal to individual freedom, because on closer
inspection these are only struggles for the elimination of those inequalities which
stand in the way of the equal exercise of freedom. We can draw the obvious
conclusion that every new social movement in the modern age serves to detect and
10
A similar statement of this thought is found in Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Library of
America, 2004), 747 61.
11
Elisabeth Anderson, Social Movements, Experiments in Living, and Moral Progress: Case Studies from Britains
Abolition of Slavery, Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas, forthcoming 2015.
210 AXEL HONNETH
12
Cf. Axel Honneth, Freedoms Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), 17.
13
Dewey also advances a similar argument see John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: The Middle Works, Vol.
14 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 1988), 194 99.
REJOINDER 211
14
There are some important suggestions on this topic in Philip Kitcher, The Ethical Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2011), Chapter 6; Elizabeth Anderson, Social Movements, Experiments in Living, and Moral
Progress: Case Studies from Britains Abolition of Slavery.
212 AXEL HONNETH
15
Cf. John Dewey, The Inclusive Philosophical Idea [1928], in The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, ed.
Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), Vol. 3, 41 51.
16
Axel Honneth, Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy, in The Handbook of Critical
Theory, ed. David M. Rasmussen, trans. James Swindal (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 369 99.
17
Cf. my analysis: Axel Honneth, A Social Pathology of Reason: on the intellectual legacy of Critical Theory, in The
Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory, ed. F. Rush (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 336 60.
REJOINDER 213
disorders under the concept, that consist in socially caused obstacles to the full
realization of the available rational potential.18 In Freedoms Right I made use of
this latter approach, when discussing the possibility of social pathologies in our
modern society. I understand these as pathologies of freedom that result from the
fact that members of society fail to realize the grammar of the incomplete
freedoms of law [Recht ] and morality in an adequate manner. Law and morality
generate the possibility of exitor voice, and social pathologies occur when
members of society mistakenly consider this possibility to be the whole of freedom.
Fabian Freyenhagen begins by criticizing this conception of social pathology;
however, he goes on to try and demonstrate that, across my various attempts to
make use of the concept, I am without a sound and compelling characterization of
social pathologies.
Freyenhagen follows his criticism of my conception of social pathology with the
further claim that my approach in Freedoms Right betrays a fatal tendency towards
mere reformism. Like Schaub, he is of the opinion that my account of
institutionalized norms in modern society entails only the possibility of gradual
improvements, and completely denies the possibility of revolutionary change.
Quite apart from the fact that it surprises me again how easily talk of revolution
comes to the lips for some, despite our present social circumstances sometimes
one almost wishes for the return of Adornos profound pessimism19 I can only
briefly repeat here the argument I gave in my response to Schaub. I simply do not see
how we could imagine a revolution in our uncertain future which would occur
without being based on an interpretation of the normative principles of freedom.
Of course, we could easily imagine that in the future one freedom say, that of
private property might come to be limited by some other freedoms say, of social
freedom in the economic sphere. But in such a case we in no way break with or leave
the normative horizon of modern societies. Both authors Schaub and
Freyenhagen also consistently overlook my occasional references to market
socialism as a possible and desirable continuation of the collective endeavour to
further realize the underlying promise of social freedom in the economic sphere.
To impose a ban on graven images [Bilderverbot ] as Freyenhagen does, when he
claims one must criticize contemporary conditions without a conception of a viable
alternative, seems to me to be reckless and unfair. It not only sounds like an excuse
for having no tangible conception of those social transformations one would like to
bring about, but is also reminiscent of those vacuous speculations about a radically
different world to come which Marx made such short work of.
However, concealed behind this revolutionary fac ade in Freyenhagens paper is
an entirely serious and astute analysis of my attempt in Freedoms Right to link the
normative reconstruction of modern societies with the goals of the diagnosis of
social pathologies. I follow, in a slightly modified form, the suggestion of
Christopher Zurn in understanding, in this context, social pathologies as the
18
Christopher Zurn, Social Pathologies as Second-Order Disorders, in Axel Honneth: Critical Essays, ed. Danielle
Petherbridge (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 345 70.
19
Theodor W. Adorno, Resignation, in Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 10, 2 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1977), 794
99.
214 AXEL HONNETH
20
Cf. also my Dewey-Lecture: Axel Honneth, Three, not two, Concepts of Liberty: the Idea of Social Freedom, Ms.
2014.
REJOINDER 215
the spheres of law and morality, while misdevelopments are unique to the
ethical spheres. Through these misdevelopments the level of the realization of the
underlying promise of freedom, which has been achieved through successful
outcomes of social struggles, could either be entirely undone, or seriously put at risk.
In giving this first response, it is already clear to me that Freyenhagens objection
that in Freedoms Right I reduce social pathologies to processes which exclusively
take place in the head is false. The diagnosis of pathologies in the development of
freedom is aimed first and foremost at identifying in the relevant spheres of action
(law and morality) the structural tendency to generate illusions of the complete
realization of freedom. These illusions are themselves responsible for the
secondary misinterpretations of the people subject to them. Whoever thinks
that such pathologies are a kind of distraction, deflecting attention from other, more
serious problems in our present society, should consider the tendency, noted already
by de Tocqueville, that in the USA social struggles are largely carried out in the form
of lawsuits.21 The thesis that the spheres of legal justice [Recht ] and morality each
hold an internal tendency to generate an illusion of their respective independence
also clarifies why I have considered it necessary to separate such pathologies from the
so-called misdevelopments in the ethical sphere. I was of the opinion that in the
ethical [sittlich ] sphere we do not find such a propensity to generate such illusions;
and that this is because the participants in this sphere could not entertain the idea that
they could realize their freedom through purely individual action. These systematic
claims also show that legal and moral freedoms are derivatives of social freedom; but
surprisingly Freyenhagen does not pay particular attention to this.22
However, I myself have come to entertain doubts about this distinction between
pathologies and misdevelopments, due to concerns which my colleague Markus
Willaschek raised at a recent symposium on my book. This is not to say that I would
relinquish the derivative character of the spheres of legal and moral freedom. Rather, it
seems important to consider whether the spheres of social freedom might not be
vulnerable to systematic misinterpretation, as they cannot eliminate the possibility of
having their principles understood merely in terms of negative freedom. In particular,
there is the constant possibility of such fundamental misinterpretation in the ethical
sphere of the economic market. This is because one finds rather ambiguous statements
in the intellectual founding documents of this sphere, which can be interpreted in the
sense of negative freedom, as well as practical social freedom. This opposition was
recently highlighted by John Roemer, in showing the contrast between understandings
of markets as operating as systems of incentives, or conversely as co-ordination
systems.23 But if the internal systems of the ethical spheres can produce these
misinterpretations, then I cannot maintain the distinction between pathologies and
misdevelopments in the way attempted in Freedoms Right. The distinction must be
placed still deeper, in order to properly bring out the differences which motivated me to
make the distinction in the first place. In any case, I can no longer deny that the spheres
of social freedom suffer from pathologies. Due to social or cultural upheavals, the
21
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 302 19.
22
Axel Honneth, Freedoms Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, 128f.
23
Cf. John Roemer, Ideology, Social Ethos, and the Financial Crisis, Journal of Ethics 16 (2012): 273 303.
216 AXEL HONNETH
concept of mere negative freedom can begin to take over such spheres. Such a situation
has certainly been in effect in the spheres of the market ever since the beginning of the
neoliberal era, and certainly we should see a social pathology at work here.
However, even in conceding that pathologies are possible in the ethical spheres, the
possibility of distinct misdevelopments remains visible. This is because this latter
concept picks out the very different cases in which for a variety of reasons, but
usually due to the coercive use of power and violence by the ruling group the
struggle for a further realization of the underlying promise of freedom in institutions
is blocked, or even reversed. I am certainly aware that the assertion of the possibility
of such misdevelopments presupposes some assumptions about the direction which
the genuine processes of the realization of institutional norms would have to take;
and my response to this is the same as that given in Freedoms Right. Namely, that the
retrospectively identifiable outline of what are commonly agreed to have been the
right steps in the developmental processes of society can teach us about what the next
steps in the proper development of these processes would have to be.
In advancing his claim that I cannot distinguish with sufficient clarity between
pathologies and misdevelopments, Freyenhagen raises a further objection
I would like to briefly consider. He is of the opinion that in a recent paper I once again
affirmed the to his mind misleading view that social pathologies must not
necessarily be reflected in individual disorders.24 Although he understands well what
I am getting at in this line of thought, he insists that talk of social pathologies is
incorrect, so long as these pathologies are not also expressed in indicators of
suffering from mental impairments which are recognizable by individuals. It may help
here to distinguish more strongly between mental disorders, on the one hand, and
social behavioural problems, on the other, than we commonly do. I agree that without
the presence of some visible abnormality in ordinary behaviour we cannot have cause
to consider whether a social pathology might be in play. However, I resist the move to
equate all such abnormalities with mental disorders. This would lead us to set a very
low bar for qualifying as a mental disorder, and would thereby downplay the suffering
of the genuinely mentally ill. Although rampant consumerism may indeed produce
staggering behavioural problems, it is not itself a mental disorder which requires
therapeutic treatment. From the observers perspective there must of course be some
behavioural problems in order for an impairment to individual freedom to be
perceptible otherwise they would not appear unusual. But it does not follow from
this that from the participants perspective there must be some perceived suffering on
the contrary: is it not the case that Adorno and Foucault to mention just these two
describe common enough behaviour patterns that are without any resonance within
the subject in question? In this respect, almost every diagnosis of social pathologies
incurs, by beginning from those behavioural problems accessible from the observers
perspective, a debt it must discharge: only the afflicted individuals themselves can
confirm that these problems really are extant, if they thanks to the diagnosis are
made capable of taking up and recognizing both their affliction and the underlying
causes of it. However, to take refuge in the idea that the suffering of the subjects
24
Axel Honneth, The Diseases of Society: Approaching a Nearly Impossible Concept, Social Research.
An International Quarterly 81, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 683 703.
REJOINDER 217
would always provide a warrant for the initial diagnosis of a pathology seems to me to
lead to an inflation of concept of suffering, which pushes it at too far a remove from the
experience of subjectively felt discomfort. Successfully advancing a diagnosis of a
social pathology remains a difficult business, and the risks can only be minimized by
giving as convincing and exhaustive a description of those behavioural problems
which arouse suspicion as possible.
Finally, there remains a question which Freyenhagen has raised in the course of his
criticism again and again, without himself offering any answer to it. The problem he
rightly picks out relates to the criteria which I have inevitably taken as the basis of the
initial diagnosis of social behavioural problems; the use of such criteria is inevitable
because although this is not immediately obvious this diagnosis of social pathologies
must also always involve forms of impairment to individual freedom. As I have said
before, if social pathologies did not involve some impairment to the individual freedom
of action, we could not term them pathologies. The question which emerges here is if
we can really derive the criteria for identifying such impairments and therefore a
concept of full self-realization from a purely immanent analysis. If I understand him
correctly, Freyenhagen answers this question in the negative, and accordingly claims that
we therefore stand in need of universal or supra-cultural criteria, but without
providing the requisite pointers [entsprechenden Hinweise ] as to what such criteria
could be. I take the opposite view, and therefore believe that the scope for behaviour
possessed by individuals is steeped in its historical context. What can be counted as
unrestrained self-realization has advanced through history, as societys regulation of and
interference in individual behaviour lessened, and the scope for the individuals
articulation of his needs increased.25 Essentially, my view is that we now understand by
self-realization something far more comprehensive than, say, people in the agrarian
societies of feudalism. Accordingly, we can only arrive at the required criteria for
reducing constraints on individual behaviour through analysis of the cultural self-
understanding of an epoch.
II
The two papers I have been attempting to answer have focussed on criticism of the
methodological approach of my book as a whole. The remaining three papers,
however, focus more on those chapters of the book which are devoted to the normative
reconstruction of individual ethical spheres. Although David N. McNeills objection
addresses what he sees as a replacement of the Hegelian approach with mere
normative reconstruction, the plausibility of his argument is based so strongly on his
use of the example of the Aristotelian account of friendship (philia) that I think I can
take his objection as related to this also. In line with the structure of Freedoms Right, in
which analysis of the ethical spheres of the market society follows my reconstruction of
the personal relationships of friendship, love, and family, I will briefly address the
critical contributions of David N. McNeill, Lois McNay, and Timo Jutten in that order.
If I understand him correctly, McNeill attempts to skilfully draw a connection
between what he sees as a deficiency in my revival of Hegels ethical theory, and a
25
See, for example, Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000).
218 AXEL HONNETH
26
A similar complaint is also raised by Robert Pippin in Reconstructivism. On Honneths Hegelianism, Philosophy
& Social Criticism 40 (October 2014): 725 41.
REJOINDER 219
27
See, for example, Ursula Wolf, Aristoteles Nikomachische Ethik (Darmstadt: WBG, 2002), Chapter 9.
28
Cf. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
220 AXEL HONNETH
deficiencies. Now, I am far from unfamiliar with those empirical phenomena which
McNay would muster in order to shock me out of my teleological optimism; who
could doubt that the institutional sphere of family remains riven by many kinds of
inequality? There is no shortage of examples dirty housework being foisted
onto a female workforce drawn from the worlds poorest countries; the continued
existence of the multiple demands placed on mothers and wives and simply
reading the newspaper in the morning, a practice Hegel recommended, keeps one
abreast of such outrages. In this respect, it seems to me, the disagreement between
McNay and I stems not from a different assessment of the current situation of the
de-institutionalized nuclear family in Western countries, but rather a different
assessment of what analytical tools we should use to the describe these conditions
and the framework within which we should evaluate them. I want to briefly enter
into both of these questions. First I will attempt to defend my teleological process,
and then turn to a defence of the analytical framework of my reconstruction.
Anyone who looks again at the way I justified the method of normative
reconstruction in Freedoms Right will soon see that I always flag up the necessity of
some stylization of the historical material which are put to use. In following the
thread of the progressive realization of the original institutional promise of
freedom, the historical material must be gently stylized so as to make this
progressive development clear. It is only at those points where the historical
material persistently refuses to be teased into such a line where the reconstructive
representation must be broken off. At these points of resistance and discontinuity
we encounter what I previously termed misdevelopments. At these points it is no
longer possible to maintain the perspective of moral progress, as events have taken
place, or processes are present, which have clearly broken with it. There are two
assumptions which in my opinion justify taking up such a teleological
historiography. First, the belief already outlined that normative ideas, due to
their inherent validity surplus [Geltungsuberhang ], have the power to motivate
practical initiatives in favour of their greater realization. Secondly, the idea owed
to Kant that we can only find the energy to realize our normative ideals if we
recognize ourselves as standing in a continuous historical line of development and
improvement, which has been carried down to us through earlier, successful
struggles.29
It is this second performative argument which McNay, in delivering her
objection against my teleological process, appears to totally ignore. In taking up the
perspective of progress, from which I have attempted to reconstruct the social
developments in modern societies, I have always intended to find motivating clues
in the present as to what direction the struggle for the further realization of the
institutionalized ideals of freedom would have to take. I hope to uncover those
progressive lines of development which society exhibits, and thereby achieve the
dual effect of specifying the direction for further improvements, and giving greater
courage to continue the uncompleted struggle to realize our freedoms. It is not clear
to me how McNay can given the aims which motivate her objections
29
See my The Irreducibility of Progress: Kants Account of the Relationship Between Morality and History, in
Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 1 19.
222 AXEL HONNETH
consistently want to avoid a teleological perspective. After all, is it not the case
that McNay also, in the account of the inequalities which she characterizes as the
present condition of the family, has to have in mind both the direction of progress
through which those deficiencies in future could be overcome, and also the hope
that the description of these inequalities will contribute to the efforts required for
such progress? That we have such intentions, whether implicit or explicit, seems to
me almost inevitable from the already outlined perspective of progress.
Accordingly, I see no appropriate tool to guide the direction of our emancipatory
efforts and to equip us with the required confidence for those efforts, other than the
attempt to find a line of progressive improvement in the past. This gives us the
courage to continue our struggles, as it allows us to recognize that the struggles of
the past have already borne fruit.
McNay indirectly raises a methodological problem in the course of trying to
show that I am incapable of keeping some of the inequalities she outlines in view
due to my analytical separation of the social spheres, and this problem I find a little
more difficult to answer. This problem probably mainly refers to those distortions
in social structure which have led to care work now being increasingly carried out
by female labour drawn from the poorest countries. In truth, by dealing with the
family and labour markets in separate places in my book I deprived myself of the
possibility of focussing directly on the reciprocal interaction of these spheres. As a
result, I have been compelled to only pay attention to the influence which one
sphere has on the other where, in the reconstruction of the internal development of
the one sphere, the influence of the other is so obvious that one is forced to take it
into account. I freely confess that due to this strategy of the separation of the
spheres I was not able to capture, for example, the impact which the growing
internationalization of the labour market has had on the division of household
labour in Western societies. However, what is the methodological alternative? My
guess is that I could only avoid the methodological separation of the spheres if
I assumed that a single sphere had total determining power. Then I could take the
totality of society in view from this one sphere, due to its determining power, and
follow its effects through all the other spheres. However this alternative perhaps
in the end an improved version of the base-superstructure thesis was not available
to me, as I wanted to explore in the manner of Hegel, Durkheim and Max Weber
the implacable strength of the normative ideal which has, ever since the beginning
of modernity, become institutionalized in each of the various spheres of action.
Thus, there was no other way but to reconstruct the development of the
functionally differentiated spheres separately, and to take care to notice those
influences obtaining between them which might exert a positive or negative effect
on the internal realization of their normative promises. From McNays work on
these tricky issues [Schwerpunkt ], I have learnt that probably even more influences
and inter-connections of this kind exist than I had uncovered in my analysis.
My normative reconstruction of the spheres of the modern economy follows my
analysis of the spheres of personal relationships, which I separated into the three
relational models of friendship, intimate relationships, and family. I would like to
also understand the modern economy as anchored in principles of social freedom,
and soon after the publication of Freedoms Right a storm of criticism accompanied
REJOINDER 223
30
For examples, see Wellmer, On Critical Theory.
31
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001),
mainly Part Two, sections 5 and 6.
32
Cf. Friedrich Kambartel, Philosophie und Politische Okonomie (Gottingen: Wallstein, 1998), especially 14ff.
224 AXEL HONNETH
uncoerced, free satisfaction of the needs of all participants, using the new means
of exchange which capitalism makes possible. Understanding this promise in terms
of social freedom as I propose captures how equal economic actors in the
market complement each other through freely agreed contracts. These contracts are
indeed forged in self-interest, but they cannot be properly understood without
keeping in view their effect on general welfare. The above is basically an
interpretation of the moral legitimation which justifies the application of new
mechanisms of coordination to markets. I then interpret Hegel and Durkheim as
both attempting to outline the institutional and legal regulations which could
secure the social aspect of behaviour in the market sphere. Of course, this also
means that both thinkers are convinced that the market, in order to exist at all,
needed a framework of appropriately socialized regulations and institutions; Hegel
called this civil society; Durkheim, market society. I do not want to go over
again all the suggestions which Hegel and Durkheim made on this score, but instead
to emphasize that both decided that intermediary bodies [Vermittlungsorgane ]
were necessary in order to both tame competition and secure the common good. For
Durkheim, furthermore, an abolition of inheritance appeared necessary in order to
prevent an imbalance of power between market participants, and the possibility of
forced contracts.
Although I have much sympathy for both measures, and often emphasize how
important discursive intermediary bodies are for enabling social freedom in
market societies, I must, however, leave open the question of the final constitution
of markets which have been truly socialized. This is because I see the reconstruction
of historical struggles for the realization of social freedom as an experimental
learning process, which can only inform us in retrospect which conditions must be
met in order for the realization of social freedom in market societies. As one works
through the list of institutional requirements such a reconstruction can produce, it
is obvious that a completed socialization of the market could only be possible
under post-capitalist conditions. All the changes called for, from the abolition of
power imbalances between market participants, to the establishment of discursive
intermediary bodies, through to the humanization of work, are measures which are
considered urgent and necessary for achieving social freedom within a market
society. If one summarizes these measures it seems obvious to me that an abolition
of the possibility of private monopolies on capital is indispensable. I have not
explicitly drawn this consequence, and have kept silent about the future
constitution of market societies, due to the nature of my chosen method of
normative reconstruction. This approach prevents me from looking beyond the
conditions of the present in order to see the contours of a society which might
already be emerging, those continuations of the unfolding process of progress
which would be both foreseeable and desirable. I must, in other words, leave it to
the institutional imagination of the repeatedly mentioned addressees,33 to imagine
what economic policies could be drawn from the history of struggles for the
realization of social freedom which I have presented.
33
[Translators note: Honneth, presumably, has participants in social struggles as the repeatedly mentioned
addressees in mind.]
REJOINDER 225
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Notes on contributor
Axel Honneth is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York,
Director of the Institute for Social Research and Professor of Social Philosophy at
the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. His book publications include:
(with Hans Joas) Social Action and Human Nature (1988); The Critique of Power.
Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory, (1991); The Fragmented World of the
Social. Essays in Social and Political Philosophy (1995); The Struggle for
Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (1996); Suffering from
Indeterminacy: an Attempt at a Reactualization of Hegels Philosophy of Right
(2000); (with Nancy Fraser) Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-
Philosophical Exchange, (2003); Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea
(2008); Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory (2009); The I in
We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition (2012); Freedoms Right: The Normative
Foundations of Democratic Life (2014).
Correspondence to: honneth@em.uni-frankfurt.de.
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