The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice (New Directions in Critical Theory)
Rainer Forst
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN: 0231147090
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Contemporary philosophical pluralism recognizes the inevitability and legitimacy of multiple ethical perspectives and values, making it difficult to isolate the higher-order principles on which to base a theory of justice. Rising up to meet this challenge, Rainer Forst, a leading member of the Frankfurt School's newest generation of philosophers, conceives of an "autonomous" construction of justice founded on what he calls the basic moral right to justification.
Forst begins by identifying this right from the perspective of moral philosophy. Then, through an innovative, detailed critical analysis, he ties together the central components of social and political justice—freedom, democracy, equality, and toleration—and joins them to the right to justification. The resulting theory treats "justificatory power" as the central question of justice, and by adopting this approach, Forst argues, we can discursively work out, or "construct," principles of justice, especially with respect to transnational justice and human rights issues.
As he builds his theory, Forst engages with the work of Anglo-American philosophers such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen, and critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth. Straddling multiple subjects, from politics and law to social protest and philosophical conceptions of practical reason, Forst brilliantly gathers contesting claims around a single, elastic theory of justice.
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The modern identity, the modern "spirit;' feeds on the three central ethical sources of belief in a divine creation,6' befief in the power of reason of the autonomous subject, and confidence in the be nevolence and abundance of nature. On these "constitutive goods" rest vari ous " hypergoods;' such as that of universal equal respect and subjective self determination,62 which in turn give rise to the formulation of a universalistic morality, which distances itself from its ethical roots only at.
Makes a virtue out of the necessity that arises in modern societies when prevailing and unquestioned substantive principles of the right and the good, which once provided order to social life, are lost: it ties the justification of what is held to be just back to the mutual justification of principles, norms, and laws by citizens. Measured against a classic understanding of theory, this type of theory partially relinquishes its authority, though not completely, because it still establishes the.
Moral value is not ::PJ!imarily dependent upon this radiance. How else is the priority of the right o¥�.r the good supposed to be normatively and epistemologically explained 11rkterms of "public" justification (at all three levels) ? How else, other than ;;gxat the "ideals" and "principles" of practical reason discussed above, on i}yhich Rawls's political constructivism relies, Characterize "reasonable" per ;:�ons and accord them a moral capacity for reflection according to which they ;:view.
Granted to each individual. From the discussion of moral and ethical autonomy so far, it follows that the limit to be drawn between per missible and unacceptable uses' of personal freedom cannot legitimately be 4etermined by substantive ethical values, since they favor one conception of the good life over the other. Legal autonomy should legally guarantee the possibility of second-order ethical autonomy, though not on the basis of an ethical judgment about what is "good" for persons but on the.
Whereas Barber's republicanism, which assumes that there is no "independent ground" of ethical-political validity, is less concerned with preestablished values. But the difference here is just one of emphasis, not of kind, for his model assumes that there is ail ethical identity switch happen: ing when a person understands him- or herself as a citizen and views the common good as internally connected to his own good. Thus, he may not find a "deeper" communally constituted identity that was there.