A formal recognition of social attachments: Expanding Axel Honneth's theory of recognition

Inquiry

Volumn 50, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 180-205

  Van Leeuwen, Bart ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34047150316     PISSN: 0020174X     EISSN: 15023923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00201740701239897     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Axel Honneth (1992) Kampf um Anerkennung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp) Translated as: Axel Honneth The Struggle for Recognition (Trans.) J. Anderson (Cambridge: Polity, 1995).
2. The Philosopher's Index database (1940-2006/06) refers to a total of only 4 publications (minus those of Honneth) with the following combinations of terms: "Honneth" and "multiculturalism"; "Honneth" and "politics of identity"; and "Honneth" and "politics of recognition".
3. Charles Taylor (1994) "The Politics of Recognition" in Amy Gutmann (Ed.) Multiculturalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press) pp. 25-73. The Philosopher's Index gives 35 hits just with the combination of the terms "multiculturalism" and "Taylor" (excluding namesakes).
4. Axel Honneth "Ethiek van erkenning" interview by P. van den Berg and G. Oenen Krisis Vol. 77 (2000) pp. 24-36.
5. Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth (2003) Redistribution or Recognition? (London: Verso).
6. Honneth The Struggle for Recognition p. 174.
7. The notion "personal identity" denotes a person's practical relation-to-self, that is, the way in which a person evaluates and understands him- or herself in everyday thinking and acting. (Ibid., pp. 133, 163)
8. Axel Honneth (1997) "Anerkennung und moralische Verpflichtung" Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung Vol 51. pp. 25-41.
9. Honneth The Struggle for Recognition p. 177.
10. Axel Honneth (1994) Desintegration (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch).
11. Jaak Billiet and Hans De Witte (1995) "Attitudinal dispositions to vote for a 'new' extreme right-wing party" European Journal of Political Research Vol. 27 pp. 181-202.
12. Honneth "Anerkennung und moralische Verpflichtung" pp. 37-39.
13. Arnold Burms (1990) "Helping and Appreciating" in Sander Griffioen (Ed.) What Right does Ethics have? (Amsterdam: V.U. Press) pp. 67-77.
14. In that sense it is ironic that Honneth refers to Taylor's "The Politics of Recognition" as an illustration of a communitarianism that "die Anerkennungskategorie heute benutzt, um solche Formen einer Wertschätzung von fremden Lebensweisen zu charakterisieren, wie sie sich typischerweise im Horizont gesellschaftlicher Solidarität herausbilden". Honneth "Anerkennung und moralische Verpflichtung" p. 26, italics mine. Of all people, it is Taylor who fiercely criticized the idea that "an appreciation of unfamiliar ways of life" ought to be understood as a type of "solidarity". After all, "then [...] the act of declaring another culture's creations to be of worth and the act of declaring oneself on their side, even if their creations aren't all that impressive, become indistinguishable. The difference is only in the packaging. Yet the first is normally understood as a genuine expression of respect, the second often as unsufferable patronizing [...] A favorable judgment on demand is nonsense [...] Then the question is no more one of respect, but of taking sides, of solidarity". Taylor "The Politics of Recognition" pp. 69-70, italics mine.
15. Fraser and Honneth Redistribution or Recognition? pp. 168-169.
16. Honneth The Struggle for Recognition p. 129.
17. For a critique of Honneth's unjustified restriction of esteem to the "usefulness for society" in his The Struggle for Recognition,
18. see Arno Laitinen (2002) "Interpersonal recognition" Inquiry Vol. 45 pp. 463-478, 471-472;
19. Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch (2004) "Marktwirtschaft und Anerkennung" in Christoph Halbig and Michael Quante (Eds.) Axel Honneth (Münster: Lit Verlag) pp. 93-97.
20. For a similar critique: Rainer Forst Contexts of Justice (2002) (Trans.) J.M.M. Farell (Berkeley: University of California Press) p. 282;
21. Martin Fuchs (1999) Kampf um Differenz (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp) pp. 322 ff. Incidentally, this cultural variation should not be understood as a "mosaic", as a collection of internally homogeneous and hard-edged pieces that are neatly positioned against one another. Instead, cultures are internally mixed, often overlapping, while cultural and subcultural boundaries are by nature more often blurred than clear.
22. See Ulf Hannerz (1992) Cultural Complexity (New York: Colombia University Press).
23. At first sight, this critique resembles Nancy Fraser's break with identity-based notions of recognition (Nancy Fraser (2002) "Recognition without Ethics?" in Scott Lash and Mike Featherstone (Eds.) Recognition & Difference (London: Sage) pp. 21-42;
24. Fraser and Honneth Redistribution or Recognition?). However, her approach - the status model of recognition - has two major drawbacks. Firstly, given her division in two moral categories "status" and "class", it becomes conceptually difficult to make fine-grained distinctions within the status model between different types of recognition with distinct normative claims and specific justificatory burdens. Secondly, Fraser's normative point of departure, parity of participation, ultimately lacks normative conviction because it has a tendency to sidestep the internal perspective of the agent of recognition-claims.
25. See Christopher Zurn (2003) "Identity or status?" Constellations Vol. 4 pp. 519-537.
26. Another recent attempt to articulate a non-evaluative recognition of difference in terms of equal status has been made by Peter Jones (2006) "Equality, recognition and difference" Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy Vol. 9 pp. 23-46. Although some of his observations are similar to mine, the problems are roughly the same as with Fraser's approach. The lack of conceptual differentiation is especially striking. He does not differentiate sufficiently between the recognition of a person's autonomy and a person's social attachments. As a result, it is unclear what the difference is between his model and the traditional idea of respect for equal autonomy - an idea that after all can also be explained with Jones' formula: "what matters to you should matter to me because it matters to you" (p. 30). This is potentially detrimental to the idea of a politics of recognition (see beginning § III of this article). A related problem is that he is unable to conceptualise conflicts between cultural rights and basic civil and human rights.
27. Brian Barry (2002) Culture and Equality (Cambridge: Polity Press) p. 40.
28. Ibid., p. 36.
29. See § IV. In fact, see also § V and § VI.
30. Amongst others: Will Kymlicka (1989) Liberalism, Community and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press);
31. Will Kymlicka (1995) Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
32. Fraser and Honneth Redistribution or Recognition? p. 169.
33. Ibid., p. 167.
34. Ibid., p. 169.
35. See my "Social attachments as conditions for the condition of the good life? A critique of Will Kymlicka's moral monism" Philosophy & Social Criticism 32 (2006) pp. 401-428. Although others have criticized Kymlicka as well for being too instrumentalist (I refer to the relevant literature in my article), none of these commentaries provides a clear conceptual distinction between: 1) the instrumental value of language or culture; 2) the intrinsic value of language or culture as such; and 3) the intrinsic value of language or culture for the group members involved. As a consequence, it often remains unclear whether the alternative moral justification for minority rights is based upon value type 2 or 3. In the case of type 2, one actually ascribes rights to cultures themselves. As a consequence, one creates the possibility of a duty for the group members involved to maintain their own culture. See also footnote 55.
36. Tariq Modood (2000) "Anti-Essentialism, Multiculturalism, and the 'Recognition' of Religious Groups" in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman (Eds.) Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 175-195, 186-187. This is why it is misleading to apply the "equality principle" to cultural rights in the case of immigrants, because immigrants cannot claim equality with regard to the expression of their own cultural identity in relation to the native population. There is no moral symmetry between immigrant groups and the native population with regard to cultural rights, although there is symmetry with regard to civil, political and social rights. For a sensible approach to these kinds of moral asymmetries,
37. see Joseph Carens (2000) Culture, Citizenship, and Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
38. Cf. Lawrence Blum (1998) "Recognition, value, and equality" Constellations Vol. 5 pp. 51-68, especially 55 ff.
39. Kwame Anthony Appiah (1994) "Identity, Authenticity, Survival" in Gutmann (Ed.) Multiculturalism pp. 149-163, 151.
40. "Convergence is what happens when our values are shared. But what is required for common meanings is that this shared value be part of the common world, that this sharing be shared". Charles Taylor (1985) Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 39, italics mine.
41. It would constitute the kind of social affiliation that Avigail Eisenberg refers to as an "involuntary association", something very different from "nonvoluntary associations" and "voluntary associations". Avigail Eisenberg (1995) Reconstructing Political Pluralism (New York: State University of New York Press) pp. 177 ff.
42. An involuntary association is an association that the individual actively rejects but, at the same time, cannot avoid because it is linked to a characteristic that he or she possesses nonvoluntarily, such as being black, and this characteristic influences how this person is treated by others (p. 180).
43. Hence he or she is identified by others as a member of a certain group, but self-identification is lacking. In the case of & nonvoluntary association, however, the affiliation is characterized by active commitments to the values of the group, although the affiliations are not chosen in this case either (p. 179).
44. Here both other-identification and self-identification are present, as is the case with my conception of social attachments. Voluntary associations are characterized by the fact that a person makes an autonomous choice to be part of them, depending on whether or not the group values in question seem reasonable or appealing - as is the case, for instance, with membership to a political party.
45. Kymlicka Liberalism, Community and Culture ch. 4;
46. Charles Taylor (1985) Human Agency and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) especially on "radical re-evaluation", pp. 40 ff.
47. Iris Young (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press) p. 46.
48. Avishai Margalit (1996) The Decent Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) p. 140.
49. Charles Taylor refers to this aspect of human agency as "strong evaluation". See Taylor Human Agency and Language part 1;
50. Charles Taylor (1989) Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) part 1.
51. Margalit The Decent Society p. 140.
52. Eugeen Roosens (1989) Creating Ethnicity (London: Sage) pp. 15-17
53. st axis) comprises the sense of yourself as "morally accountable".
54. Indicative of this trend is Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska (Eds.) (2003) Toward Assimilation and Citizenship (New York: Palgrave).
55. Nathan Glazer (1997) We Are All Multiculturalists Now (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) ch. 6, "Where Assimilation Failed".
56. Two prominent writers in this regard are Barry, Culture and Equality
57. and Richard Rorty (1998) Achieving Our Country (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
58. Recent empirical research covering 21 countries shows, for example, that "there is no evidence [...] of a systematic tendency for multicultural policies to weaken the welfare state [...] Indeed, in the case of immigrant groups and national minorities, the countries with the strongest multicultural policies fared best in terms of growth in social spending and greater redistribution, providing a hint that perhaps multicultural policies may actually ease any tension between diversity and redistribution". Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (2005) "Multiculturalism and the welfare state" Canadian Diversity Vol. 4 pp. 103-106, 105;
59. Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (2004) "Do Multiculturalism Policies Erode the Welfare State?" in Philippe Van Parijs (Ed.) (2004) Cultural Diversity versus Economic Solidarity (Brussels: De Boeck) pp. 227-284.
60. "Integration", on the contrary, means adaptation, for instance, to the national language and fundamental laws, as well as the possibility of public expression of a minority identity.
61. It is an historical fact that forced assimilation did not always diminish the strong identification of minorities with their particular cultural background. In certain circumstances, especially in the case of territorial concentration, an ethnic revival after a period of enforced uniformity is possible. The risk here is that the political suppression of social identities reifies a sense of belonging and, as a consequence, might make it close to impossible for different social groups to live together. See James Tully (1995) Strange Multiplicity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 197.
62. Avigail Eisenberg and Jeff Spinner-Halev (Eds.) (2005) Minorities within Minorities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
63. Joshua Cohen et al (Eds.) (1999) Is Multiculturulism Bad for Women? (Princeton: Princeton University Press);
64. Ayelet Shachar (2001) Multicultural Jurisdictions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
65. Veit Bader (2005) "Associative Democracy and Minorities within Minorities" in Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev (Eds.) Minorities within Minorities pp. 319-339, 328.
66. I will give two examples. Concerning area 2: Although polygamy is in fact legally forbidden in all Western liberal democratic states, and although it creates a certain asymmetry between the spouses, it is not obvious why it should be prohibited. How does this fit with the general principle that adults should in principle be able to enter into whatever contracts or personal relationships they choose? See Carens Culture, Citizenship, and Community p. 155. Moreover, there are advantages to legal recognition of this practice, such as: a) access to the rights associated with the status of legal spouse; b) the possibility of legal encouragement to reform, for instance by making marriage conditional on general consent (of all partners) and minimum age and; c) institutional affirmation of at least a formal equality between the sexes by allowing both polygyny (more than one wife) and polyandry (more than one husband).
67. Cf. Jacob Levy (2000) The Multiculturalism of Fear (Oxford: Oxford University Press) p. 57-59.
68. Concerning area 3: Exclusion and discrimination - however morally wrong -have to be legally tolerated in some cases, depending on the goals of the association and the availability of realistic exit options. Meaningful associational autonomy for religions implies the legal toleration of exclusion (for instance of women from priesthood) by religious organizations, in matters directly connected with core beliefs and practices (Ibid., p. 331). However, Bader rightly stresses that the state or public opinion can and should interfere in these cases in other ways, for instance, with public criticism, campaigns or by cutting subsidies. Cf. Amy Gutmann (2003) Identity in Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press) ch. 2. Moreover, "the further the distance from religious core organisations and core activities, the weaker the shield of "Free Exercise" should work, the more legitimate is the legal imposition of non-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation" (Ibid., p. 332).
69. Ibid., p. 328.
70. Ibid., p. 328. Carens rejects infibulation in all cases, but he accepts the possibility of less radical forms of circumcision in the case of adult women who voluntarily choose to undergo this ritual. He also argues for accepting symbolic types of circumcision for children (a small incision) that causes no more harm then male circumcision. Carens Culture, Citizenship and Community pp. 145-153.
71. The adjective "minimalist" indicates that we are not talking of the list of rights and recourses that are, traditionally, part and parcel of a full-blown conception of respect for personal autonomy. Bader speaks of a "minimal morality" in this context. Cf. Veit Bader (2007) Secularism or Priority for Liberal Democracy? (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press).
72. See Honneth's critical review of Margalit's The Decent Society: "A society without humiliation?" European Journal of Philosophy Vol. 5 (1997) pp. 306-323. Another more recent example of the negative justification for a politics of difference is Jacob Levy's The Multiculturalism of Fear. This book offers a very different perspective from my own negative justification, on the basis of the recognition-theoretic approach. Where I concentrate on the moral consequences of the potentially adverse effects on identity that occur as a consequence of disrespect, Levy tends to concentrate more on the risk of social conflicts and intercommunual violence that might emerge if certain groups within a society are systematically downgraded and marginalized. Hence, the multiculturalism of fear. I do not believe, however, that fear is either a legitimate or a convincing ground for the justification of minority rights. For one thing, it gives the impression that "those pushy minorities" simply get their way because otherwise they will wreak havoc on society.
73. See Will Kymlicka and Alan Patten (Eds.) (2003) Language Rights and Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
74. Honneth reduces, for example, the possibilities for the justification of a politics of difference to these choices. Axel Honneth (1999) "Negative freedom and cultural belonging" Social Research Vol. 66 pp. 1063-1077.
75. Daniel Weinstock "The Antinomy of Language Policy" in Kymlicka and Patten (Eds.) Language Rights and Political Theory pp. 250-270, §2. To give just one example of a famous argument that runs this risk: Charles Taylor refers in his work to the political importance of cultural survival.
76. Charles Taylor "Can liberalism be communitarian?" Critical Review Vol. 8 (1994) pp. 257-262;
77. Taylor "The Politics of Recognition". But the implication of this politics of cultural survival is ambiguous, because it could contain a claim that the culture "itself is of value and for that reason "survival through indefinite future generations" should be safeguarded (ibid., p. 41). That strategy ignores the point of view of these future generations themselves, and thereby "overlooks the possibility of misrecognition occurring through one generation imprisoning the next in a false vision of itself [...] A culture's self-understanding can change, and efforts to force a contemporary understanding on the future seem hardly immune to the problems around imposed identities Taylor seeks to avoid". Andy Lamey (1999) "Francophonia for ever" The Times Literary Supplement Vol. 23 pp. 12-15, 14.
78. Cf. Avishai Margalit (2001) "The Crooked Timber of Nationalism" in Mark Lilla et al (Eds.) The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin (New York: New York Review Books) pp. 147-159.
79. Cf. § IV. For this aspect of social attachments, see also the description of 'encompassing groups', especially characterization number 5, in Margalit The Decent Society pp. 139-140.
80. Honneth The Struggle for Recognition p. 122, cf. pp. 123, 126.
81. Will Kymlicka (1997) States, Nations and Cultures (Assen: Van Gorcum).
82. Will Kymlicka (2002) Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 217-219, 344.
83. Cf. Anna Galeotti (2002) Toleration as Recognition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
84. Gail Presbey (2003) "The struggle for recognition in the philosophy of Axel Honneth, applied to the current South African situation and its call for an African renaissance" Philosophy & Social Criticism Vol. 29 pp. 537-561.
85. Charles Taylor (1994) Reconciling the Solitudes (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press) p. 183.
86. Richard Johnson (1986) "The Story So Far" in David Punter (Ed.), Introduction to Contemporary Cultural Studies (London: Longman) pp. 277-313, 303.
87. Gerd Baumann (1997) "Dominant and Demotic Discourses of Culture" in Phina Werbner and Tariq Modood (Eds.) Debating Cultural Hybridity (London: Zed Books) pp. 209-225, 210.
88. Some groups (e.g. the Amish) do live in almost complete isolation from the rest of society. But these groups are unique and can be considered an exception to the rule.
89. I am indebted to Veit Bader for the analogy with health and healthcare.
90. One could argue that there cannot be a "politics of recognition" without a "recognition of politics": Kwame Anthony Appiah (2005) The Ethics of Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press) p. 101.
91. See also Jürgen Habermas "Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State" in Gutmann (Ed.) Multiculturalism pp. 107-148;
92. James Tully (2000) "Struggles over recognition and distribution" Constellations Vol. 7 pp. 469-482.
93. Taylor "Can liberalism be communitarian?" p. 262.
94. This article is a substantially revised version of Bart van Leeuwen (2001) "Erkenning, identiteit en verschil" Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 63 pp. 751-784.1 thank Veit Bader, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. This research has been funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.