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LEGAL GOOD AND RECOGNITION: A STUDY OF AXEL HONNETH'S SOCIAL THEORY Fabio Rober

LEGAL GOOD AND RECOGNITION: A STUDY OF AXEL HONNETH'S SOCIAL THEORY Fabio Roberto D’Avila, Giovani Agostini Saavedra Éditions juridiques associées | « Droit et société » 2011/2 n° 78 | pages 325 à 337 ISSN 0769-3362 ISBN 9782275028521 DOI 10.3917/drs.078.0325 Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://www.cairn.info/revue-droit-et-societe1-2011-2-page-325.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Éditions juridiques associées. © Éditions juridiques associées. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) Legal Good and Recognition: A Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Theory Fabio Roberto D’Avila, Giovani Agostini Saavedra Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Faculty of Law, Av. Ipiranga 6681, Prédio 11, 10° Andar – Sala 1030, Porto Alegre/ RS, CEP 90619-90, Brazil. <giovani.saavedra@pucrs.br> <fabio.davila@pucrs.br>  Résumé Le bien juridique et la reconnaissance : une étude de la théorie honnéthienne de la reconnaissance Les auteurs explorent ce que la discussion actuelle sur le « bien juridique » (legal good) et le « principe de préjudice » (harm principle) peut offrir à la théorie honnéthienne de la reconnaissance. À travers Hegel et Durkheim, ils relèvent combien la peine juridique, concept ressenti du droit positif, concrétise puissamment les notions de justice et d’injustice auxquelles font écho les premiers travaux de Honneth sur les expériences négatives de mépris juridique. Regrettant que le modèle honnéthien ait ensuite bifurqué pour envisager d’autres objets d’étude, ils expliquent comment le caractère intégral, c’est-à-dire à la fois axiologique et existentiel, de la notion de bien juridique pourrait en faire l’heureux complément de cette méthode que Honneth appelle la reconstruction normative. Axel Honneth – Bien juridique – Émile Durkheim – G.W.F.Hegel – John Stuart Mill – Peine – Principe de préjudice – Reconnaissance.  Summary The authors explore what the contemporary discussion on the legal good and the harm principle can offer Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. Through Hegel and Durkheim, the reader is reminded how legal sanction – the experienced concept of positive law– powerfully actualizes the key notions of “justice” and “injustice” which are echoed in the earlier works of Honneth dealing with the negative experience of legal contempt. Somewhat regretfully, noting that Honneth’s latter works changed focus, the authors underline how his method of “normative reconstruction” could benefit from the integral character of the “legal good” as a concept possessing both an existential and an axiological dimension. Axel Honneth – Emile Durkheim – G.W.F Hegel – Harm Principle – John Stuart Mill – Legal Good – Punishment – Recognition. Droit et Société 78/2011  325 © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) F. D’AVILA, G. SAAVEDRA In the paper Gerechtigkeitstheorie als Gesellschaftsanalyse. Überlegungen im An- schluss an Hegel 1 published last year, Axel Honneth presents the foundations of his theory of justice. His main argument is that a theory of justice must be grounded on the structural preconditions (Strukturvoraussetzungen) of contemporary society. He argues that the premises of a theoretical justification of this kind cannot be justified in advance, but, on the contrary, that it needs to be a product of the theo- retical process of justification itself. 2 The first premise is that the diversification of society is intrinsically connected with ideals and ethical values. For Honneth these values permeate all the social spheres with ethical norms, which guide individuals within their social spheres of action. 3 All social spheres, including the economic one, are impregnated with ethical values; hence all social orders are bound to the preconditions of legitimization through ethical values or ideals. This premise is connected with a second one, according to which, as theory of justice is concerned, the only values which can be considered are those which a society really embodies. Moreover, one should only count as legitimate those values truly capable of pro- moting the intrinsic ethical values of each of these social spheres. 4 Thus Honneth, like Hegel, does not believe it would be possible to analyze social values or the prin- ciples of justice from a neutral and external moral point of view. We are always intrinsically connected with the ethical values which are embodied in the social spheres of action. Therefore he defends the thesis that a theory of justice can only be developed through an immanent method, which describes our principles of justice from within, and must be developed in the form of a social analysis. Hon- neth calls this “normative reconstruction”. 5 With this argument Honneth is trying to re-actualise the meaning of Hegel’s concept of “the objective spirit embodiment” (Verkörperung des objektiven Geistes), upon which Hegel’s concept of Sittlichkeit relies. 6 However, Honneth knows that Hegel’s concept of Sittlichkeit involves more than a mere description of given ethi- cal values. For him, it is important that only those ethical life forms which embody the modern ideal and concretized modern institutions count as ethical (sittlich). Thus, for a reconstructive method only the ethical life forms which express a con- cretization of the ideals embedded in modern and democratic institutions can be considered the object of a normative reconstruction. These ideals must be pre- sented as the result of a conflicting evolutionary process, which tends, throughout its development, to increasingly solidify possibilities of individual self-realization. Finally, the method of the normative reconstruction should not only describe the ethical values of contemporary society. It must also make it possible to criticize any 1. Axel HONNETH, “Gerechtigkeitstheorie als Gesellschaftsanalyse. Überlegungen im Anschluss an Hegel”, in Christoph MENKE and Juliane REBENTISCH (Hrsg.), Axel Honneth. Gerechtigkeit und Gesellschaft. Potsda- mer Seminar, Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaft, 2008, p. 11-29. 2. Ibid., p. 15. 3. Ibid., p. 16-17. 4. Ibid., p. 17-19. 5. Ibid., p. 21. 6. Ibid., p. 17. 326  Droit et Société 78/2011 © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) © Éditions juridiques associées | Téléchargé le 05/12/2022 sur www.cairn.info (IP: 190.120.254.36) Legal Good and Recognition: A Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Theory given institutions from the perspective of the ethical principles embodied in social spheres. 7 I. Honneth’s early Durkheimian argument and its connection to legal good and the harm principle This brief description of Honneth’s theoretical strategy should help us under- stand the status and function of the spheres of recognition in his theory of justice. According to Honneth, the three spheres of recognition are the product of the re- constructive strategy described above. The spheres of love, right and social esteem are embedded in ethical values which guide us in our social spheres of action and are invoked as legitimate criteria to solve social conflicts. For Honneth, the social spheres of recognition are a common ground, the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt) some- times reflective, sometimes unreflective, which attributes moral sense to our social relations. The meaning, the contours and the ethical principles embedded in each sphere of recognition have evolved following the development of Honneth’s the- ory; 8 since Honneth himself has acknowledged that his theory is a work in pro- gress, little can be achieved by trying to describe in detail the meaning of each sphere. This is not to say an attempt to clarify his reasoning cannot be made. It seems clear that with his plural theory of justice, Honneth is trying to intro- duce into the contemporary discourse elements which have not yet been consid- ered. For instance, he considers it limitative to rule out the emotional dimension of justice, as did Kant and as most of the contemporary debates still do. Honneth tries to overcome this qualification by showing that the experience of love and care and the healthy development of the individual play an important role in concretising justice in social relations, as does the discovery of subjective rights. Both these so- cial spheres of recognition, love and rights, are directly connected with the individ- ual’s self-realization, and these developments can only be correctly understood in interpersonal relationships. However, just like Hegel, Honneth knows that a society 7. Ibid., p. 24. Even if Honneth insists on avoiding making use of Hegel’s concept of spirit (Geist) which, for Hegel, embodies institutions or is embodied in it, it must be said that Honneth’s theoretical strategy is more or less the same one Hegel uses in his Encyclopedia, i.e. the dialectical method developed in his Logik. For a discussion of this argument see Giovani Agostini SAAVEDRA, Der uploads/S4/ drs-078-0325.pdf