Recognition and normative reconstruction as a theory of justice in Axel Honneth

Reconocimiento y reconstrucción normativa como teoría de la justicia en Axel Honneth

• Paulo Vitorino Fontes University of the Azores, Portugal. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1443-6820

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4177.55

Keywords: Axel Honneth, recognition, justice, normative reconstruction, critical theory of society

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 significance 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.

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