Freedom's Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life

Axel Honneth

Published by Columbia University Press 2014

Freedom's Right

The Social Foundations of Democratic Life

Axel Honneth

In the series New Directions in Critical Theory

https://doi.org/10.7312/honn16246

Overview
Contents

About this book

Axel Honneth constructs a theory of justice derived from the normative claims of Western liberal-democratic societies and anchored in morally legitimate laws and institutionally established practices. Honneth's paradigm demonstrates how concrete social spheres generate the principles of individual freedom and a standard for what is just. Using social analysis to re-found a more grounded theory of justice, he argues that all crucial actionsrequire the realization of a particular aspect of individual freedom.

Author / Editor information

Axel Honneth is professor of philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and the Jack C. Weinstein Professor for the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory; The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts; Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment; and The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory.

Reviews

Arto Laitinen:

Honneth has provided us with a central reference point for future debates on the nature of modernity, freedom, justice, and the social world.

Charles Larmore, Brown University:

Breaking with the dominant style of contemporary political philosophy, Axel Honneth demonstrates how fruitful it can be to develop a theory of social justice not simply by appealing to common beliefs and intuitions but more fundamentally by understanding the characteristic institutions of modern society. Freedom's Right is a brilliant work by one of today's leading philosophers.

Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College:

Freedom's Right is a stunningly ambitious exploration of the ways in which major institutions of Western society promote freedom and at the same time present obstacles to its realization. Axel Honneth defends a compelling conception of social freedom grounded in mutual recognition, which he employs both to comprehend contemporary social reality and to reveal its deficiencies. Characterized by an extraordinary richness of detail, this book's aim is a provocative mix of reconciliation and critique. No social philosopher has attempted a project of this scope since Hegel composed the Philosophy of Right almost two hundred years ago.

Joel Anderson, Utrecht University:

This book is a major statement by the distinctive perspective of a pivotal figure in the Frankfurt School tradition. Axel Honneth's accounts of social freedom, normative reconstruction, and societal pathologies are sure to be points of reference within critical social theory for decades to come.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Introduction: A Theory of Justice as an Analysis of Society Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Historical Background: The Right to Freedom
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
1. Negative Freedom and the Social Contract Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. Reflexive Freedom and its Conception of Justice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
3. Social Freedom and the Doctrine of Ethical Life Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
Transition: The Idea of Democratic Ethical Life Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Part II. The Possibility of Freedom
4. Legal Freedom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
5. Moral Freedom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Part III. The Reality of Freedom
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
6. Social Freedom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	336
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	394

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Edition: Pilot project. eBook available to selected US libraries only
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 448

eBook

Published: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 9780231530859