critical horizons, Vol. 16 No.

2, May 2015, 204 226

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.

keywords revolution, reformism, progress, social pathology, friendship, gender

inequality, market, market socialism

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.]

Critical Horizons Pty Ltd 2015 DOI 10.1179/1440991715Z.00000000048

 REJOINDER 205

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

intrinsic part of the self-reflexive business of Critical Theory to continually check

whether it can remain unchanged in the face of changing circumstances. I have
always, in this respect, shared the approach of Jurgen Habermas; to only hold as
worthy of preservation those elements of ones tradition which, when checked
against todays theoretical standards, prove fertile for articulating our current
emancipatory hopes. But Schaubs objection reaches still deeper. He is convinced
that my method of normative reconstruction makes it in principle impossible for
me to continue to take up the perspective of radical criticism at all, as that
perspective is constitutive not only for the original intention of Critical Theory, but
for any use to which one would want to put Critical Theory.4 This serious objection
throws into doubt whether my book can still be seen as standing in the tradition of
a Critical Theory of society at all. To refute it, I will first quickly adumbrate the
method of normative reconstruction, and then turn to Schaubs two central
objections.
In Freedoms Right I want, in a Hegelian fashion, to put the theory of justice on a
new footing. I try to derive relevant criteria of social justice directly from the
normative claims that have evolved within those spheres of action that are
constitutive of modern societies. By pursuing social analysis in this way, one can
avoid an error that is characteristic of Kantian approaches the error that
principles of justice are arrived at over the heads and historically evolved claims of
the people to which they are intended to apply. These principles are generated by
means of thought experiments, or similar proceduralist expedients, and are only
applied to social reality afterwards. My method, which allows me to distil
normative claims from each of the various spheres of action, I call normative
reconstruction. In polemical rejection of the constructivist approach, I try, in an
idealizing fashion, to reconstruct those social conflicts and disagreements to date
that were fought over the correct interpretation and realization of the norms tacitly
accepted by all participants as underlying the various spheres of action. This is done
in the hope that in each of the trajectories we can reconstruct from the
developments these struggles produce due to the struggles being successful either
immediately or eventually we might trace a line of moral progress, which not only
tells us which of the implicit normative claims have been already realized, but also
what we now must do in order to realize them more fully and adequately. Where we
find this reconstructed line of progress being abandoned, insofar as institutionalized
improvements in the application of the sphere-specific norms are undone, I term
this a normative misdevelopment [Fehlentwicklungen ]; where, however, a praxis
is reformed in a way that applies its underlying norm in a more appropriate and
comprehensive way, I term this moral progress. (I will address the additional idea
of the possibility of a social pathology later, in connection with Fabian
Freyenhagens objections). The history of Western societies is riven with a number
of historical ruptures, perceived in hindsight by everyone affected as blessings or
major achievements (or, at least, they have to be described in this way), due to the
improvements in the practice and execution of the sphere-specific norms which

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

arose as a result. In Freedoms Right I do not hesitate to refer to such historical

events with a concept from Kants philosophy of history the sign of history
[Geschichtszeichen ] in order to make clear their crucial role in determining the
sense of direction which is implicit in our historical identity.
If these few notes do not properly outline how the method of normative
reconstruction should be understood,5 it may help to note that I would like to try
to find for the sphere of Objective Spirit [Geistes ] a post-metaphysical equivalent
for what Hegel called the Logic of the Concept. This was, for Hegel, the
methodological idea that Spirit [Geist ], understood on an organic model, had
sufficient power to gradually realize itself in reality through the execution of its own
characteristic processes. Accordingly, for Hegel the only task reserved for
philosophy was to retrospectively give an appropriate expression of this process
of self-realization.6 With the obsolescence of such a (metaphysical) idea of Spirit
[Geist ], we can only hold to this methodological idea if we can deliver an
alternative explanation of why it is that the Spiritual [Geistiges ] is able to unfold
and realize itself in social reality.7 In delivering this alternative explanation I use the
idea (ultimately derived from Sociology) that a certain class of the Spiritual
[Geistigen ] namely, normative ideas have the ability to shape and remodel
social reality in accordance with their own content. It is in and through social
struggles that their claims to validity come to fruition. According to Hegel, Spirit
[Geist ] transforms reality solely due to its own intrinsic power, in accordance with
the demands of free, pure, self-reference. Working with our modified, post-
metaphysical idea, we see that social actors accomplish such progress and
transformation through taking the promises implicit in historically formed norms at
their word, and through trying to implement those promises by rebelling against
prevailing social conditions. This reformulation leads to an almost idealist
consecration [Weihe ] of social struggles, since these struggles have to guarantee
that Spirit [Geist ] becomes realized at least in the sphere of social reality. It must
be said, however, that this was always the main point of The Struggle for
Recognition, and is also supported by the work of writers like John Dewey, for
whom it is by way of the intelligible solutions to social conflicts that reality
gradually becomes spiritualized [vergeistigt ].8
Schaub has two main objections to this method, and jointly they supposedly
support the claim that in Freedoms Right I have secretly given up on radical
critique. First, he lays great stress on my justification for the method of normative
reconstruction, highlighting the fact that, in applying this method to the current
social order, I can use it only for an analysis of purely internal progress of a gradual
nature. In his view, this means that I must rule out in advance any possibility of a

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

normative revolution, and am thereby tied only to the possibilities of normative

variation and change which are immanent in our current society. Secondly, not
making it too easy for himself, Schaub also goes on to examine my suggestion that
we also apply the method of normative reconstruction supra-epochally, in order to
prove retrospectively the normative superiority of our current social order. This step
seems inevitable to me, given that the reconstructive method can only be applied in
the manner I require to morally justified ideals. However, Schaub wants to show
that normative reconstruction also needs to take into account the possibilities of
normative transcendence within current social formations. Both objections are
linked in some respects, but I will first deal with them separately, before then
relating them to each other.
The first objection comes as no surprise, given that I myself concede that, in the
light of my account, we can only expect gradual social improvements in the
application of the ideals of freedom which underpin the various spheres of action in
modern social orders. However, there are two important factors to consider which
might make this reformist claim appear in a wholly different light. It was only in
the discussion of my book which followed its publication that it became clear to me
how wrong (in the light of my own considerations) it was that I had not allowed in
my normative reconstruction more institutional malleability in the gradual
realization of sphere-specific norms. If I had done this, it would have left open the
possibility of dealing with cases of institutional revolution. This consists in the
possibility that the underlying norm of a particular sphere of action can only be
realized in a more appropriate and comprehensive way, through a fundamental
change of the institution that had previously been served to realize it. This first
became clear to me when I was asked for my opinion on previous attempts at the
revolutionary transformation of family relationships as, for example, was found
in the Kibbutz movement. But similar conclusions also arise if we consider the not
improbable idea that the principle of social freedom in the economic sphere could
only be realized through market socialism.9 In all these cases a revolution would
not occur in the normative framework of our society, as the institutional
innovations would be sought through appeal to the same ideals of freedom which
have all along served to coordinate our expectations and assessments of action in
the relevant spheres. However, in the course of the struggle of some groups, it may
be made apparent that a more comprehensive application of those norms could
only be achieved if the institutional forms of the relevant spheres
were fundamentally changed. If we accept this possibility of institutional
revolutions and I already argued for this revision to the argument given in
Freedoms Right in our discussion in London then the methodological
confinement to gradual change only exists in relation to the normative framework
of society. We can now see that there is a possibility of a more fundamental
transformation to the institutional framework of modern society. To this extent at
least, I agree with Schaub that it would have been better for the methodological
structure of Freedoms Right if it had given greater malleability to the institutional

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

uncover a previously concealed obstacle to the individual or collective exercise of

the freedoms which institutions have promised and that, as this normatively
driven process of discovery is open-ended, we essentially cannot predict what
obstacles to the exercise of individual freedom might emerge in the future. But,
conversely, this also means that we cannot expect any normative revolution in
the future. Given the principles which govern our intersubjective spheres of action,
it is impossible to imagine their undergoing any normative change, other than
through the development of one of the many varieties of individual freedom.
The historical and empirical reasons for holding that modern society is beyond
the possibility of normative, but not institutional, revolutions can also be
supported by a different kind of evidence. Hegel justifies his thesis of the End of
History primarily on the grounds that, with the institutionalization of free
subjectivity in the wake of the Reformation, Spirit [Geist ] within social reality had
assumed a form in which Spirit could become aware of its own constitution for the
first time. Accordingly, for Hegel whatever followed after this could be nothing
more than a higher-level reflection of the objective realization of the various
forms of absolute knowledge, not a fundamental change in the objective
institutional reality itself. As a replacement for this ontological claim, we could
take the view that by socially institutionalizing the principle of individual freedom,
we have achieved a reflection of the real that is, the only justifiable form of
the grounding of social orders. As long as social formations cannot be ratified by
the autonomous consent of every individual, they cannot serve as justified forms of
social interactions.12 This position is to an extent similar to the Hegelian thesis,
except that it does not require his ontological premise of a self-realizing Spirit
[Geist ]. It is we ourselves, as members of a universal community of beings endowed
with Spirit [Geistbegabter ], that find adumbrated in a social order founded on
principles of freedom that we created, the normative procedure with which we
can mutually justify our social conditions. According to this argument, we cannot
go beyond the normative framework of modern societies, as we find the discursive
functioning of our Spirit [Geist ], which is dependent on reciprocal agreement,
reflected in that social order.13
Both reasons taken together the historico-empirical and the metaphysical
justify the strong thesis that we should no longer call for revolutions in the basic
normative constitution of our societies. While we cannot rule out such fundamental
changes taking place, any such revolution would have no capacity for moral
progress, and hence nothing to recommend it. Rather, we can only usefully focus
our emancipatory hopes on the gradual progress in the implementation of the
already underlying principles of freedom in our societies. Accordingly, it seems to
me that Schaubs objection that in concentrating on immanent improvements I
have missed the possibility of a normative revolution is the expression of an
unfounded speculation, carried out merely for the sake of its radical effects.
He needs to show at least one plausible example of a way in which a normative

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

revolution could take place without being owed to an innovative new

interpretation of the principle of individual freedom (in its various forms).
In a way, this contains part of the response to the second fundamental problem
which Schaub raises. He rightly points out that I want to apply the method of
normative reconstruction not only to the process of the realization of
institutionalized norms in our contemporary social order, but occasionally also
for the purpose of demonstrating the supra-epochal normative superiority of our
social order. I never explicitly carry this out in my book, but rather hint at it. But it
seems indispensable to me all the same, as it must be made clear in some way why
taking our normative principles as our starting point is justified. The simple
recourse to the fact that they are the normative principles we currently live by, I
not unlike Hegel take to be insufficient, because this says nothing about why we
should accept these principles as the basis for the justification of our norms of
action. Therefore we need to take an additional step in demonstrating, again in the
form of a normative reconstruction, that contemporary foundational principles are
superior to all previous principles of social integration, and therefore can
reasonably [mit Recht ] be taken as a basis for justifying norms of justice
[Gerechtigkeit ]. One of the questions Schaub raises in this context is why I then
refuse to consider the possibility that there might be superior normative principles
to our present social order; given that in the past each socially integral value has
been supplanted by a broader, more comprehensive, value, why should this not also
occur in future to our current values? I hope I have already given a response to this
question in my preceding remarks on the insuperable nature [Unuberschreitbar-
keit ] of the normative horizons of modern society. We may expect that
revolutions in the institutional design of the individual spheres of action will
occur, but not a normative revolution that severs the link between these spheres
of action and some interpretation of the norms of individual freedom.
The second question Schaub raises about my supra-epochal application of
normative reconstruction is more difficult to answer, however. He casts doubt on
the possibility of defining the criteria by which we could determine a hierarchy of
those overarching values which are responsible for the normative integration of
entire social formations. I can only give my response in outline below, not only
because a full reply would take too much space, but also because I have only
recently turned again to the current literature on the complicated question of the
possibility of moral progress in history.14 Despite the concerns raised by Schaub,
I continue to hold that endorsing our norms and values as superior or better than
those of preceding epochs is a transcendental requirement for the formation of
our present self-understanding. This does, of course, require us to take as a basis
those criteria which could justify this endorsement. I take it that such criteria must
be derived from the same social and discursive qualities of our Spiritual [geistigen ]
activities, which we also appeal to in making apparent the reasons why the now
institutionalized values of individual freedom are of an insuperable nature

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

[Unuberschreitbarkeit ]. Thus, we measure progress in the moral development of

societies by the degree to which they allow their members to participate, with equal
rights, in the definition and interpretation of established norms. We can derive two
interconnected criteria from this which we can already find being employed in the
attempts of John Dewey, Emile Durkheim or Talcott Parsons to give an analysis of
the developmental trends towards social improvement namely, of the degree of
social inclusion, and of the degree of universalizability of the established values.
The first criterion measures moral progress in the basic institutional structure of
societies according to the degree to which the members of those societies are
involved in defining the norms which regulate their interaction. The second
criterion states that the level of participation in the basic specifications of these
values cannot be independent of the universalizability of those values; that is to say,
the openness or responsivity of these values to potential claims of everyone involved
is internally related to the decision of who is eligible to participate in the
specification of such values in the first place. Neither criteria, on my view of the
historical process, are simply imposed from without; rather they jointly reflect in
their interrelation that the evolutionary stages of social progress or growth,
to use Deweys expression can only consist in the gradual overcoming of those
obstacles to unrestrained communication between all involved.15 Deweys thought
appears to me to be a quite incisive reproduction of the core of Hegels idea that
progress in society always takes place when, through overcoming
hitherto concealed forms of dependencies and merely external determinations,
Spirit [Geist ] which is socially and discursively constituted steps closer to a full
realization of its own nature. For Hegel, of course, the goal of such a development is
a social state, in which any member can recognize themself in any other within each
sphere of action, that is, in which recognition is mutual and equal in all cases.
Dewey may have shared with G.H. Mead and Peirce the belief that in our
unavoidable anticipation of a universal communication community we do
nothing more than assume an endpoint to our struggles to find the most intelligent
solutions possible to our social problems [Interaktionsprobleme ].
Within such a historical process of moral progress, we must understand what
I (following a tradition in social philosophy) have called social pathologies16 as
persistent disorders in the course of the gradual realization of our rational
powers. In my opinion the earlier diagnoses of the Critical Theorists always relied
on the strategy of considering capitalism a pathological state of society, as in such
a state reason fails to adequately realize its available potential.17 However, from the
very beginning I have vacillated on just how to justify the concept and diagnosis of
social pathologies; at times I have followed a more anthropological approach,
seeing pathologies as deviations from our naturally given life form; at others,
I have followed the advice of Christopher Zurn to only include second order

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

inability of individual groups of actors to realize appropriately the rational pattern

[Rationalitatsmuster ] implicit in their normative conditions. To be clear, this failure
is not attributable to subjective error, but is generated by the same practical norms
[Handlungsnormen ] to which the misinterpretation is committed. These type of
social pathologies should have the same form although of course not the same
content as commodity fetishism did for Marx, or Romanticism did for Hegel in
the Philosophy of Right; namely, cognitive errors caused by the same objective
conditions to which they are applied. Freyenhagen has advanced several objections
against my use of the concept of social pathology in Freedoms Right. First, he
appears to take issue with the fact that social pathologies play out only in the
heads of those affected; secondly, he argues that this diagnosis of social
pathologies only deals with surface phenomena, and does not disclose structural
deficits at the deeper level of basic social structure; thirdly, he holds doubts about
my claim that social pathologies cannot be simply analysed as accumulations of
individual mental disorders; and fourthly, he attempts to show that my introduction
of a distinction between social pathologies and misdevelopments [Fehlent-
wicklungen ] cannot, on closer inspection, be maintained. This is a great number of
objections to consider at once, and even with the best will in the world I cannot
properly respond to them all here. It would be best, I think, to begin with the last
objection, and then turn from there to the other concerns raised.
The distinction between pathology and misdevelopment I operate with in
Freedoms Right can only be understood in the context of a prior differentiation
I make in the spirit of Hegels Philosophy of Right. The institutional spheres of
modern law and autonomous morality provide only possibilities of freedom,
which gives the individual scope for an arbitrary (exit) or justified (voice) escape
from existing role obligations. The ethical [sittlich ] spheres of personal relations,
market society, and democratic will formation, provide realities of freedom, as
thanks to their founding normative principles social spaces have been
institutionalized within which participants can realize themselves in the best possible
conditions and without anyone being coerced by another [wechselseitiger
Zwanglosigkeit ]. Naturally, I cannot enter into a justification of this hierarchy of
types of freedom in the present context, but such a justification can be found in Part I
of Freedoms Right.20 At any rate, starting with the outlined distinction I developed
the idea that a structural deformation in the first two spheres could actually cause or
suggest misinterpretations, as these spheres have an internal tendency to
continually produce illusions of the full realization of individual freedom within
themselves. Conversely, it seems to me that the ethical spheres do not have such a
disposition towards the systematic formation of illusions, because they already hold
in principle the institutional conditions for a complete realization of individual
freedom. These differences between the two classes of social spheres of action
regarding their structural characteristics then led me to differentiate between
pathologies and misdevelopments. Pathologies, in the sense of a
misinterpretation of underlying normative regulations, could only be produced in

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

deficiency he perceives in my analysis of friendship. He claims that by intentionally

discarding Hegels idealist concept of the historical realization of Spirit [Geist ] in
my post-metaphysical revival of Hegels theory of ethical life, I no longer have the
methodological resources for proving the substantial unity of justice, freedom,
and self-realization in the institutional constitution of our present society. That
would require a systematic procedure for retrospectively demonstrating the
necessary co-incidence of all three elements in the ethical community of our time;
however I renounce such a mechanism by replacing Hegels logical reconstruc-
tion with a method of the mere historical demonstration of the equilibrium
between historical conditions and rational considerations.26 Now, McNeill is not
himself a Hegelian, and certainly does not want to urge me to tie my work in more
closely with the Hegelian system. But he does want to convince me that another
methodological tool is required in addition to normative reconstruction, if I want
to maintain the strong Hegelian claim that the basic institutional structure of
society not merely contingently, but rather necessarily, finds its fullest realization in
the coincidence of freedom, justice and self-realization. McNeill builds a link from
this first objection to his real complaint, by alleging that I have in my normative
reconstruction of the relationship of friendship overlooked the very feature of the
Aristotelian model which would have been ideally suited to close off the
methodological gap which McNeill has just outlined. What Aristotle sees as so
special about the highest form of friendship, on McNeills reading, is that we see our
friend as embodying a value which cannot be derived from our own self-
determination and, accordingly, this value cannot be reducible to our mere
subjective preferences or sympathies. Had I paid sufficient attention to Aristotles
way of developing subject-independent value in his example of friendship
I interpret McNeill as claiming I would have seen that it shows a way of
perceiving demands for justice which is ideally suited for closing the
methodological gap in my own work. McNeill objects that my reconstruction of
Hegel cannot achieve its ambitious goal of showing that the normative structure
of modern society is both the final and necessary form of the realization of the unity
of justice and freedom. In his view, replacing Hegels logic with my process of
mere normative reconstruction is insufficient. I will not broach this objection
here my response has already been given in the course of my reply to Schaub,
where I pointed out that normative reconstruction must of course be applied supra-
epochally, across history, so as to demonstrate the moral superiority of modern
societies to their predecessors. McNeills objection that I cannot demonstrate the
moral superiority of modern societies over their predecessors is premised on the
assumption that my approach exhibits a methodological gap; and it is this
assumption which leads him to feel that he must advise me of the possibility of
finding objective values as illustrated through his example of friendship to close
this gap. However, if there is no such gap which is something I hope to be able to
assume then accordingly there is no need to search for some additional
procedural element to close it. This being so, I will limit myself here to

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

consideration of McNeills alternative interpretation of the ethical substratum of

friendship, which he develops against me with the help of Aristotle. In doing so,
I cannot enter very far at all into the interpretative question of whether McNeills
outline of Aristotles account of friendship is accurate. Anyway, he is the expert and
specialist on this, to whom I can only point out that in the specialist literature other
interpretations, with less stress on objective value, can be found.27 More
important for my purposes is the question of whether we would actually do well in
using this sophisticated model as the key to the reconstruction of modern ideals of
friendship for this is all I am concerned with; it is not my aim to answer the
question of how to conceive ideally of friendships.
Much of what separates McNeill and I on these issues hangs on our answers to
the question of how we should understand the historical rupture which is generally
described as a breakthrough to the modern ideal of friendship. I accept McNeills
claims that before this historical break there were isolated examples of male
friendships which were utterly independent of economic considerations, and which
were based on mutual esteem. Aristotles statements appear to substantiate this
claim. However, is not the claim that such exemplary friendships serve as a
philosophical model itself a sign that a purely aristocratic ideal is here in play,
reserved solely for those who possess the appropriate knowledge and virtues? And
is not the breakthrough to the modern ideal of friendship to be understood, by
comparison, as the emergence of an authentic friendship independent not only of
economic calculation, but also independent of the existence of such personality
traits as knowledge and virtue? And does not the principle of friendship now
purely based on subjective fellow feeling disclose a principle of friendship which
is not aristocratic but for everyone? If this is so and reading the key founding
texts on this issue have left me convinced it is then the development of these new
ideals is at the same time a discovery of an inner, subjective point of reference which
for the ancients [den Alten] must have been unknown namely, the
experience of authentic feelings of affection and sympathy.28 It is my view that
the modern ideal of friendship arises simultaneously with the idea of personal
authenticity; in entering into a friendship, the parties are mutually required to feel
authentic feelings of affection and sympathy for each other.
Of course, participants in these new friendships will sooner or later come to
feel that their partner has certain personal attributes (like knowledge, or virtues)
which have objective value regardless of how they happen to feel about that
person. But these valued properties are, so to speak, first conceived of in the light of
the initial feeling of sympathy, and not vice versa, as if the person only deserved
affection due to their embodying these objective values. If we wanted to understand
the experience of our friends being valuable as being based on an objective
agreement between our friends properties and some set of objective criteria, we
would in my opinion be culpably forgetting the immensely subjective nature of
modernity. Rather, the positive feelings initially extended to the friend are extended
spontaneously, without a defensible or rational ground. The valuable properties

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

we later come to find in our friends, as a result of this authentic experience,

retrospectively explain why we had this spontaneous experience. This is certainly
not a rationalization in the psychoanalytic sense, but rather in the colloquial
sense of coming to a better understanding of ones own feelings.
If we ignored this subjectification of the experience of friendship, we could not
in my opinion explain why in the course of the nineteenth century a rapid spread of
the idea and relationship of friendship occurred. This could only have occurred
after what was perceived as valuable in ones friends had been radically
pluralized, and therefore was no longer conceived of as timeless or of universal
validity. Moreover, the primary role of the initial feeling of sympathy and affection
also explains why friendships can cease to exist over time. Just as in romantic
forms of relationship, ones feelings for the person form the essential and
irremovable motivation for ones relationship. With the disappearance of that
feeling, so too disappears any reason to maintain the relationship; just as the initial
positive feelings opened ones eyes to the value of the other, so too could these
values fade from view as this affection itself begins to diminish. This means that it
would not be appropriate to understand modern friendship on the Aristotelian
model which McNeill employs; on that model the objective value I perceive in my
friend would be independent of my feelings about him, and so the decline of my
affection for him would not give me any reason to break off our friendship.
In this sense, I need not put the ideal of philosophical friendship, which
McNeill outlines drawing on the Nichomachean Ethics, into question, but rather
disagree with McNeills criticism of my account of friendship. What is special about
the modern constitution of the friendship relationship, together with the rapid
spread of this new form across class boundaries, is that it has made possible
experiences of authentic affection, and replaced ideas about the objective,
timeless value of others. As in my analysis I was focussing on nothing other than
reconstructing the development of this concept of friendship up to the present, I can
forego any analysis of the objective demands for justice in friendship. This is
because, as far as I can see, ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century the
social rules with which people try to describe what they mean by friendship give no
place for such demands.
While McNeill attempts, on the basis of his Aristotelian interpretation of
friendship, to show that I should have endowed my reconstruction of modern
society with a knowledge of objective value, Lois McNay, in her argument against
my normative analysis of the modern family, proceeds in a very different fashion.
It appears she would not put the methodological process of normative
reconstruction as such into question and also agrees with my emphasis on the
democratic role of personal relationships but rather has strong concerns about
the way I have applied this process to the family. Her central objection concerns the
teleological pattern which I used as the foundation of my reconstruction of this
institutional sphere. In her opinion, the development of the family in no way
develops in a straight line towards democratization as I assume; the continued
existence of inequalities organized around gender, class, and the distribution of
welfare benefits cannot be dismissed as simply caused by lack of development of the
principles in play. They are rather, in her view, manifestations of structural
 REJOINDER 221

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

my attempt to reconstruct the market economy as a social sphere based on

a normatively legitimate promise of social freedom.30 Timo Jutten, in his
contribution to this special issue, joins this storm like every other critic of my
position, he believes it is misleading to attribute an internal promise of freedom to
the market, as it is merely an anonymous mechanism for coordinating the exchange
of economic benefits. A market can only be properly understood, the argument
goes, in terms of pure self-interest and therefore as a form of the realization of
negative freedom.
Before I briefly enter into Juttens central argument, I would like first to give a
clarifying definition which appears important for the purposes of this discussion.
We should, indeed, only understand the term market to pick out an abstract
institution, which makes possible the exchange of economic goods for all the parties
involved; and the values or prices of this institution are ruled by supply and
demand. What I mean here by abstract is that markets cannot exist purely by
themselves; they need to be embedded in a society. The nature of this social
embedding determines who counts as a participant in the market, what is a
legitimate form of supply and demand, and what is eligible to be exchanged as
goods. Accordingly, the idea of a pure or free market is as Karl Polanyi has
already showed pure ideology, employed in order to excuse a withering of state or
social intervention into markets a market could not last one day without social
regulations of any kind.31 In social theory, then, we should not talk about those
purely mental constructs markets, but rather market societies, making it clear
from the outset that markets can only exist with the help, or in the framework, of
social regulation. Accordingly a capitalist market society must be understood as
a special form of the social embeddedness of markets, in which the organization of
markets in productive capital, liquid capital, and land capital is tied in with their
respective expected yields.32 It is not self-evident that markets can only exist in this
social form indeed since Polanyi the anthropological and historical research on
economies has tirelessly shown that other forms of the regulation of markets have
already existed. Received economic theory equipped with the might of an
academic discipline tries over and again to obscure this, and to convince us that
there is an unbreakable unity between capital markets and private property. In any
case, to discuss the issue raised by Jutten we would first require a thorough analysis
of the concept of the market. Unfortunately in Freedoms Right, I did not always
meet this requirement I insufficiently distinguished between market societies and
capitalism. This failure on my part, however, also appears to be at play in Juttens
objection.
What I ask myself in the opening chapter of my normative reconstruction of the
market society is which kind of social regulation is most likely to realize the moral
promise of the modern concept of the market. The modern conception, inaugurated
by Adam Smith, contains this promise insofar as it keeps in view the idea of an

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

My impression is that Jutten could not recognize the normative thrust of my

reconstruction of the ethical sphere of the markets because he, in line with the
general tendency of the Marxist tradition, equates the concept of the market with
the form it takes in capitalist society. But we can decouple these two concepts, and
with Polanyi point out that markets can be embedded in societies in a variety of
different ways. In doing this, we can then turn towards the question of which
conditions must be fulfilled in order for the participants to have their (market
compatible) needs, with the uncoercive assistance of the mechanisms of exchange
(contractual freedom), reciprocally (through the division of labour) and with
transparency (performance related justice) satisfied. But if we do not engage in such
a decoupling, it is possible that we could mistakenly turn into a fatal cul-de-sac, as
Marx himself did in only being able to imagine a centrally planned economy as an
alternative to capitalism.

Translated by Owen Hulatt (University of York, UK)

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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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