Axel Honneth and the struggle for recognition

Abstract

Recognition is a normative concept. By recognizing someone as having certain characteristics or capabilities, we recognize their normative status and we are taking responsibility for treating them in a certain way. Non-recognition, in this case, can mean deprivation of rights and marginalization; in a democracy may preclude individuals or groups from enjoying the democratic egalitarian ideal, for example. Over the past three decades, reflection on this category has deepened and taken on greater importance in the debate between liberalism and communitarianism parallel to the demands, sometimes for the achievements, of groups and minorities (LGBTQIA, people with special needs, feminist, indigenous, ethnic, etc.) who feel unrecognized and engage in political movements through struggles for recognition. We will return here to the development of Axel Honneth's concept of "ethical life" in Struggle for Recognition (1992), a fundamental work for reflection on the theme. The author places his theory in the middle between Kantian morality and communitarian ethics: his conception is formal for he understands that universal norms are conditions of some possibilities, but they are substantive for they are guided by the end of human self-realization.