The Limits of Recognition: Axel Honneth's Formal Ethical Life and the Problem of Ideology

• Author / Creator

  Ali Mesbahian

• The term “recognition” is a commonly employed category in the political scene. Colloquially, it designates a moral demand on part of the bearers of injustice to be treated with dignity and respect. But recognition is not merely a demand, but also an action; it has addressors, but also addressees, the latter being the more powerful. How should we construe this dynamic for an ethical theory? Does recognition designate something fundamentally moral? What is at play when the powerful claim to have recognized the powerless? The following thesis explores these questions with respect to Axel Honneth’s thought, in particular in his seminal Struggle for Recognition. On the basis of an anthropological account as well as a historical analysis of modernity’s “learning process”, Honneth offers a reconstruction of the early Hegel’s threefold theory of recognition in order to elucidate the conditions of a just society. Yet, as I will argue, Honneth’s theory does little to address the asymmetries of power in relations of recognition. As a result, he provides an overly moral account of recognition while overlooking how recognition itself can be utilized as an ideological tool for assimilation. After explaining Honneth’s theory in the first chapter, I will develop this criticism in the second chapter, and apply it in the context of Indigenous struggles for self-determination in Canada in the third

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Honneth
  • Right
  • Politics
  • Recognition
  • Hegel
  • Law
  • Ideology
  • Multiculturalism

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-ph9w-3y55

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.