Description
Recognition and social freedom are intersubjective practices in every-day life. They are common practices of giving respect and giving what we owe to each other. As foundational ideas they are key elements in political and social theory. A critical theory, then, evaluates normative aspirations of ideas in contrast to their social and empirical imperfections. In this paper, I engage with a blind spot in Axel Honneth’s critical social theory of recognition and social freedom. As it leaves out transnational and global issues. Honneth develops the normative ideas of mutual recognition and social freedom in relation to “social justice” at the level of the nation-states. However, I claim that recognition and social freedom should also be applied to transnational issues. An expansion towards “global justice” is fruitful and necessary because intersubjective relations do not stop at arbitrary national borders. Social relationships expand over space and time. Therefore, I develop a cosmopolitan account Honneth’s ideas of by understanding mutual recognition as respect across borders and social freedom as global justice.
The paper also contributes to the methodologies of international political theory and critical social theory. Honneth uses a distinct method of “reconstructivism” in arguing for normative ideas. This method is bridging a gap between ideal theory and the analysis and critique of existing social relations. Honneth’s method is reconstructive in the sense that is uses tools of historical analysis of ideas. It is normative because it views a few ideas and values as constitutive in the reproduction, integration, and most importantly the critique of societies. I contend that Honneth’s method and normative ideas should applied globally. In this sense, a methodological cosmopolitanism about recognition and social freedom is useful for the conceptual understanding of globalization and its implications.
