Social Inequality Today, Macquarie University, 12 November 2003
Social Equality, Recognition and
Preconditions of Good Life
Arto Laitinen
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä
Armala@yfi.jyu.fi
Abstract
In this paper I analyze interpersonal and institutional recognition and discuss the
relation of different types of recognition to various principles of social justice
(egalitarianism, meritarianism, legitimate favouritism, principles of need and free
exchange). Further, I try to characterize contours of good autonomous life, and ask
what kind of preconditions it has. I will distinguish between five kinds of
preconditions: psychological, material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional.
After examining what the role of recognition is among such preconditions, and how
they figure in the work of Honneth, Fraser and Taylor, I suggest a somewhat complex
and hopefully rich picture of interpersonal and institutional recognition as a
precondition of autonomous good life.
The leading idea of this paper is a combination of the ancient idea that good
societies are those which enable and promote the good life, flourishing or
well-being of the citizens, and the modern idea, that the citizens are to be
taken as autonomous individuals. Theories of recognition, from Fichte and
Hegel onwards, provide a promising theoretical framework for trying to see
people at the same time as individuals and as members of a social whole. This
paper tries to outline ways in which interpersonal and institutional
recognition figures as a constituent and precondition in the lives of modern
autonomous individuals.1
This talk is inspired by the theories of recognition by G.W.F. Hegel, Axel
Honneth, Charles Taylor and Nancy Fraser in particular.2 In the first part of
the paper I ask what is recognition, especially interpersonal and institutional
recognition, thus continuing my joint efforts with Heikki Ikäheimo to analyze
A talk based on this paper was given in the Social Inequality Today -conference 12th
November 2003 at Macquarie University, organized by the Center for Research on Social
Inclusion. Some of the points were discussed also in a separate workshop on recognition. I
wish to thank all the participants for very fruitful discussions, to which I owe a lot.
2 See the references in the bibliography to Honneth, Taylor, Fraser, Hegel.
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this concept.3 In discussing different types of recognition, I also discuss
various principles of social justice (egalitarianism, meritarianism, legitimate
favouritism, principle of need and free exchange).
In the second part, I try to characterize contours of good life, especially the
good life of autonomous individuals, and ask what kind of preconditions it
has. I will distinguish between five kinds of preconditions: psychological,
material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional. The point is to examine
what the role of recognition, as defined in the first section, is among such
preconditions. I will also ask whether recognition is not only a prerequisite,
but a constituent or ingredient of good life. Some of the comments I make
concern the difference between recognition and redistribution as debated by
Fraser and Honneth.
What is recognition? Conceptual clarifications
One central idea behind the discourse on recognition is that self-relations of
persons are dependent on the ways that others see and treat us.4 Self-esteem
depends on social esteem, self-respect on respect, basic self-confidence on
love and care, self-consciousness on communicative treatment, self-images on
other s views. As Charles Taylor (1992) has stressed, due recognition is a vital
human need. Denied recognition can cause self-hatred and other forms of
negative self-relations. The point can be put by saying that healthy selfrelations are dependent on the recognitional environment consisting of the
ways that other persons and institutions take us.
Following Hegel s views, Honneth and Taylor and Fraser maintain that
modernization has meant that an egalitarian sphere of recognition has
emerged: instead of slavery or castes or hereditary hierarchical social statuses
all human persons are nowadays taken to be free and equal, and to possess
equal standing. This means that various features (gender, race , class, outlook
etc) ought to be treated in a difference-blind fashion. In practice this battle
against unjustified prejudices is still going on, but at the level of ideas,
universalism is more or less universally accepted. Taylor uses the term
politics of universality of such difference-blind views, and Honneth relates
the term respect to this basic egalitarian tendency to grant all autonomous
persons an equal legal and moral standing.
See the references in the bibliography by Ikäheimo and Laitinen; for responses to some of
our suggestions, see Honneth 2002 and Honneth 2004. Some of the points made here are more
thoroughly discussed in Ikäheimo and Laitinen (forthcoming). Unlike in Laitinen 2002a, I
focus here on recognition as a precondition and constituent of good life, and not of
personhood as such.
4 See Honneth 1992, Hegel 1977.
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Yet, as Taylor and Honneth among others have pointed out, all differencesensitive treatment is not unjustified. Differential esteem based on desert,
merits or achievements or contributions is quite justified, and such social
esteem is relevant for one s self-esteem. Thus it makes a legitimate difference
over and above the equal basic standing, to ask what kind of person is in
question. And quite naturally, special relations and attachments between
people (friendship, family relations etc) make a difference in how we treat one
another. Thus, as Taylor points out, there seem to be legitimate forms of
politics of difference which are not difference-blind, and Honneth stresses
that love and social esteem differ from respect as forms of recognition. Before
discussing the different types of recognition more closely, let us take a look at
the phenomena of recognition at a general level.
Identification, acknowledgement, recognition
Instead of starting head-on by defining necessary and sufficient conditions of
recognition, I wish to build up a paradigm case of full-fledged recognition.
Such a case has several defining features, and it is a further question whether
cases that lack many or even any of these features count as recognition at all.
The theory of recognition presented here is part of a shared project with
Heikki Ikäheimo.5
In one sense of the word, anything can be “recognized”, that is, noticed,
distinguished from its surroundings as “something”, identified and reidentified: cats, mats, airplanes, shadows, persons, laws, dollars, groups,
states. Whatever x is, it can be recognized as x, or some kind of x, or especially
the very individual x that it is. Following the suggestion of Heikki Ikäheimo,
we can agree to reserve the term “identification” for this broad family of
senses of the word “recognition”. The point is to distinguish this from two
other surface usages of the term, in order to avoid confusion. The phenomena
of recognizing the type of an airplane, re-identifying a criminal and having
legal rules that are publicly recognizable all are cases of “identification” in
this sense. This stipulated, technical sense of “identification” covers that
meaning of “recognition” in which we can recognize anything, not only
persons or only values or norms.
In another sense of the word, we recognize norms, values, claims or
considerations when we sincerely accept or endorse them or think they are
valid, relevant or justified. Now this sense of ‘recognition’ is relevant for
understanding social reality and human life: we live in a space of concerns or
space of reasons, and understanding our concerns or the claims we endorse is
5
See the references in bibliography.
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crucial in understanding our actions and reactions. I think it is equally
important to the joint efforts of Fraser and Honneth concerning the relations
of recognition and redistribution, to distinguish recognition of values from
recognition of persons.6 Again, it may be useful to reserve the term
“acknowledgement” to this kind of endorsement or approving awareness of
evaluative and normative elements (see Ikäheimo 2002b, Ikäheimo & Laitinen,
forthcoming). The point is that such abstract things as values or norms do not
have a self-relation, the values and norms simply cannot care whether they
are recognized or not. They cannot have experiences of being misrecognized.
Yet this kind of acknowledgement of values and interpersonal recognition are
intimately intertwined.7 Again, the term “acknowledgement” need not readily
have the connotations meant here, the stipulative point is to distinguish these
phenomena from interpersonal recognition, where insults and effects on selfrelations are possible. “Acknowledgement” in this stipulated sense covers the
cases where the objects of acknowledgement are evaluative features and
normative entities, not themselves persons or recognizers of any other kind.
Now there are all kinds of bearers of value, or all kinds of things with
normative implications, or objects of concern. We live in a “moral
space”(Taylor) or in a “practical reality”(Dancy), our whole world is valueladen and laden with reasons for action. Interpersonal recognition covers a
major area of our practical concerns, for example, the rights of persons, or
concern for the well-being of persons (and other recognizers apart from
persons). But also pieces of art or the wilderness embody values and there are
norms concerning our proper treatment of them. These “bearers of value” can
be moral patients, objects of moral concern, but they cannot have a selfrelation and cannot be recognized in the sense that recognizers can be
recognized.8 We clearly are concerned about other things as well as other
See Laitinen 2002a
Laitinen 2002a
8 If we can identify anything, and acknowledge normative entities like norms, values or claims,
and if we can recognize only other recognizers, then we may need one more term for the
‘recognition’ or ‘appreciation’ or proper treatment of such bearers of value like works of art or
such animals, which are not recognizers. The point is that there is a form of distorted
evaluation, where one in principle acknowledges the norm that “do not destroy valuable
works of art”, and the norm “sexual obscenity should be avoided”, and identifies something
as a valuable but obscene work of art, and destroys it. Yet it may be clear to everyone that this
was an exaggeration, that it was not that obscene. This mistake in all-in judgement-insituation led to mistreatment and mis-appreciation of a valuable work of art. Mis-treatment of
the work of art is not as such misrecognition, because the work of art cannot care (although it
may imply misrecognition of other people who therefore cannot engage with that work of
art). And again, what was not properly acknowledged was the claim “in this case, the
valuable work of art should not be destroyed”. But it was not this claim that was destroyed,
on the contrary this claim may be all the more supported when people realized how
exaggerated the deed was. What was destroyed, and in that sense ‘mistreated’ or
6
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recognizers. And if we bear in mind that various virtues or goals of excelling
in different practices are strongly valued or “acknowledged” objects of our
concern, we see that many morally, normatively or evaluatively motivated
social struggles are not literally struggles for recognition. Yet, I think,
Honneth’s point that social struggles are morally motivated and not merely
based on self-interest, is a valid one.
These suggested usages of “identification” and “acknowledgement” leave the
term “recognition” to be used for proper interpersonal or “interrecognitional” recognition. Only recognizers can be recognized in this strict
sense. Such circularity is not vicious or uninformative: one can characterize
the class of potential recognizers without referring to recognition . One could
equally well say that only agents of “acknowledging” can be recognized, or
only beings capable of having evaluatively and normatively laden views
about others can be recognized. Or, that only those beings whose self-relation
can be affected by their interpretation of the attitudes of others, are potential
objects of recognition. As it happens, agents of acknowledgement and beings
whose self-relation can be affected in that way are one and the same class,
paradigmatically human persons. I will use the term “recognizer” to refer to
such beings capable of acknowledging, recognizing and having self-relations.
The general form of mutual recognition
Let us start from the general form of mutual recognition: mutual recognition is a
matter of two recognizers mutually taking each other as recognizers of some kind and
accepting the normative implications of such takings. This is, to use Heikki
Ikäheimo s phrase, my view concerning the genus of mutual recognition,
whereas various kinds of respect, esteem or love and so on are its species.
What distinguishes recognition from misrecognition is that the former is an
adequate response to the normative requirements in question. These normative
‘misappreciated’, was the work of art. Thus there seems to be a sense in which, say,
“recognizing of the value of old manuscripts” cannot be analyzed to recognizing persons and
acknowledging norms and values, and identifying the thing as a manuscript. To say that the
relevant thing is to identify it as a valuable manuscript may seem like a good move, and it
suggests that one did identity it as a manuscript but did not see it in the right light, as a
valuable one. The downside of this move is that it inflates the meaning of ‘identify’ to cover
all the elements of interpersonal recognition as well: everything that A does in recognizing B
is actually included in A identifying B, if identification means seeing the evaluative features
in the right light. I think that it is correct to say that one has not comprehensively understood
B, if one has not understood B’s evaluative features and normative status, but it is less clear to
me whether one can nevertheless fully correctly identify B and yet be mistaken or ignorant
about some of B’s features.
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requirements are related to the evaluative features that persons can
instantiate, but the levels of norms and values are mutually irreducible.9
Several comments are in place. First of all, this suggested definition or
characterization concerns recognizers in general, whether they are individual
human beings, groups or states. There are interesting questions concerning
the capability of any of these to be a recognizer. Humans are not recognizers
when they are born, and totally disintegrated groups or states cannot have
shared attitudes or joint actions that it takes for them to count as agents of
recognition. Things are complicated by the fact that recognition from others
seems to play a significant role in the development processes where human
persons learn to be agents of recognition themselves.10 The same goes for the
process where a less integrated group of people turns into well integrated one
capable of having the needed attitudes, or where a state-candidate turns into
an independent state. It seems that relations of recognition between the
citizens, and the recognition that the citizens give to the state for its
legitimacy, and recognition received from other states are all different
relations of recognition, which are necessary for a state to exist as an agent of
recognition.11
Secondly, the normative implications in question depend on whether we have
a case of interpersonal recognition between two persons, or international
recognition between two states or peoples (e.g. concerning their independence
and the right to govern themselves and status as a self-governing political
whole), or perhaps between two, say, cultural groups. In addition to such
horizontal cases, we have vertical cases, between an individual and a state, or
between a state and an international organization like United Nations, or
between a state and a minority group etc. Adequate recognition and
Laitinen 2002, Honneth 2002. The question concerning the relation of the deontic layer of
norms, reasons for action, oughts on the one hand, and values, evaluative features, goods on
the other hand is a general issue, not restricted to issues of recognition. In Laitinen 2003 I
criticize Kantian and Habermasian tendencies to divorce these issues too sharply, but I also
criticize Charles Taylor for his relative neglect of the deontic layer of norms, oughts and
reasons for action.
10 See Laitinen 2002a
11 Groups of people and institutions can recognize and be recognized to the extent that groups
and institutions can have the relevant attitudes. And I think groups and institutions can
indeed be agents and have the relevant attitudes, states can recognize each other, states can
recognize individuals as citizens, cultural groups may display disrespect towards one another
etc. Mere collections of individuals, mere aggregates, cannot be collective agents, but groups
which are sufficiently integrated wholes can, given that they have some more or less
institutional forms of opinion-formation (see Pettit: A Theory of Freedom). But it is important to
note that cultures or cultural horizons, as opposed to cultural groups, cannot strictly speaking
recognize other cultures. Cultures, literally speaking, do not have attitudes, as opposed to
individuals and groups, which are acculturated to such cultures. (see Blum)
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misrecognition differ in how well the normative implications are taken into
account.
Thirdly, recognition can in principle be analyzed in terms of attitudes, action
or statuses. We can say that a practical view of recognition focuses on action,
whereas a symbolic view focuses on attitudes and their expressions. But
perhaps we do not need to choose between these two views. Attitudes and
actions are intertwined, as action expresses attitudes. Perhaps neither mere
attitudes without the relevant practical behaviour, nor mere external action
in conformity to the rules without the genuine attitudes counts as proper
recognition.12 In proper recognition, the person both has the relevant attitudes
and this shows in the way the person acts.
But it is also quite common to analyze recognition in terms of A granting B
the status C (and respecting that status in one s attitudes and behaviour). In
some cases of recognition, this is the most plausible suggestion that comes to
mind (say, citizens are those who have been granted the status), but there are
also cases of recognition in which it is hard to see what the status is, say in
admiring someone as a good guitar-player or a virtuous person, and whether
there is any specific granting apart from forming the relevant attitude. If one
gets a prize or medal, this is of course something that is granted, but not all
cases of admiration are accompanied by external symbols. Furthermore, a
case where A s status as a citizen (granted by the state) is respected by B
seems less a case of granting a status than having the right kinds of attitudes
and behaving in the right way. Further, the statuses are granted on the basis
of something, that one cognizes and sees as normatively requiring, or
permitting, the granting of the status. Thus, it seems that granting a status is
sometimes the appropriate thing to do, but it is only a subclass of all the
appropriate things to do which count as recognition. Thus, recognition seems
to be the right kind of action for the right kind of attitude, and in some cases
the right thing to do may be to grant some or other status. In the same sense,
being recognized (Anerkanntsein) sometimes means that one has acquired
some public normative status, sometimes that one is treated and thought of in
certain ways.
Fourthly, this is an analysis of mutual recognition.13 Mutuality, in its
symmetrical form, demands four things: 1) A takes B as R, 2) B takes A as R, 3)
In Laitinen 2002 I favoured the practical view, but I did not consider the option that both
the attitudes and acts are necessary for recognition, or at least for the central cases of
recognition.
13 Mutual recognition is inherently dialogical, and therefore recognizee-sensitive , whereas
recognizee-insensitive or recognizee-centered forms of recognition are monological,
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A takes A as R, 4) B takes B as R. That is, both take each other to be R ,
namely recognizers, for example free and equal citizens, or human persons, or
states. This is the outcome in Hegel s analysis in Phenomenology and
elsewhere.14
Hegel stresses that self-relation and recognition are mediated by one
another15: Each is the mediating term for the other, through which each
mediates itself with itself and coincides with itself. Each is for itself and for
the other an immediate self-existing being, which at the same time is such
only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as reciprocally
acknowledging each other. (Hegel, PhG, #184) Or as Ludwig Siep (1977, 137)
puts it: Recognition, as a double-signifying act of two self-consciousnesses, is
a relation in which the relata relate to themselves through the relation to the
other, and relate to the other through their own self-relation. Thus, the self s
relation to itself is made possible by the corresponding relation to the other. 16
Hegel s ideal type of mutual recognition as reciprocally acknowledging each
other takes place in a theoretically fictitious plane where there is only one
focussing on the attitudes of only one of the participants. See Ikäheimo 2002b and Ikäheimo &
Laitinen (forthcoming).
14 This kind of mutual recognition of each other as recognizers can take place not only
between two individual self-consciousnesses, but in principle between any two recognizers,
for example between a state and an individual. The state considers itself to be a recognizer
itself, it assumes it has the legitimate power to grant citizenship. The state recognizes the
individual by granting it citizenship and rights. The individual takes the state to be a
recognizer and thinks that something actually happened when the state granted citizenship,
unlike if it was his neighbour s child who wrote the certificate. The individual takes herself to
be a recognizer and thinks that the normative power of the state to recognize is ultimately
based on its legitimacy among the citizenry.
15 But this action has the double significance of being just as much the doing of the one as the
doing of the other. For this other is likewise independent, self-determining, and there is
nothing in it except what originates through it. The first does not have a merely passive object
before it as in the case of desire. Rather the other is an independent being existing for itself.
Consequently the first may not use the other for its own ends unless the other does for itself
what the first does. The movement [of recognition] is therefore without qualification the
doubled movement of both self-consciousnesses. Each sees the other do the same that it does.
Each does itself what it requires of the other, and does what it does only insofar as the other
does the same. A one-sided action would be useless, since what is supposed to happen can
only come about through the joint action of both. ( Hegel, PhG #182), The action has double
significance not only because it is an action directed at itself as well as at the other, but also
because it is the joint indivisible action of the one as well as the other. ( Hegel, PhG, #184),
Each is the mediating term for the other, through which each mediates itself with itself and
coincides with itself. Each is for itself and for the other an immediate self-existing being,
which at the same time is such only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as
reciprocally acknowledging each other. (Hegel, PhG, #184).
16 Translated in Williams 1997, 51.
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person there to recognize me. Of course, when the learning process is over
and I have a decentred worldview in which there is room for other selfconsciousnesses apart from me, I routinely expect there to be other persons
apart from me, and I seldom make mistakes in telling persons from other
beings. Others do not have to engage in a struggle to get recognition from me
if I presume that, say, each adult human is in fact a self-conscious, sane,
rational, responsible recognizer (although I am aware that such expectation
may in some cases turn out to be too optimistic). I encounter similar taken-forgranted recognition in the expectations of others, so none of them alone has
the full responsibility of recognizing me. Thus there are empirical
complexities produced by the number of people we encounter in real life, but
it seems that on a general level it is true that one s self-relations and relations
of recognition are interconnected.
The four conditions 1-4 are not sufficiently detailed, as they could be true by
accident, as it were, without being interconnected in any way. As such, the
four conditions allow for cases in which A and B have never met, and have
only heard of each other on the radio, and they have no idea that they have
heard of each other on the radio. Maybe this is quite acceptable, certainly this
is not a case of misrecognition, and maybe such disconnected forms do count
as recognition, although they cannot have effects of self-relations, because the
recognizer is not aware of them.17 But maybe we do not want such cases to
count as recognition at all, once we analyze paradigm cases of full-fledged
recognition (which need not be a matter of face-to-face encounters, but which
it is easiest to imagine that way), which is more demanding in terms of the
kind of mutuality in question.
These more demanding, connected forms of mutuality can be illuminated,
when we focus on cases which are not strictly symmetrical over and above the
minimum that both take each other to be recognizers. Take a case where an
art-critic takes a guitar-player to be an excellent artist. This is not symmetrical:
the guitar-player does not in return take the art-critic to be an excellent artist.18
Although it makes a huge difference if I can really take it for granted that everyone tends to
take everyone, including me, as a person. Really encountering misrecognition is painful, but
also to know that one would encounter misrecognition somewhere, say in some officially
racist state, may have bad effects on one s self-image.
18 Honneth stresses, following Mead’s idea of division of labour, that in a good society
everyone has a task or a role in which one can try to make a contribution to society and gain
social esteem. One can think that it does not matter that I am no great guitar-player, my
contribution to the society comes through my work, and I do my work well. Although I am
no celebrity and get no society-wide attention to my contributions, our occupation (say,
teachers or truck-drivers) in general enjoys social esteem, and it is clear that the society needs
us. So in a good society everyone would be socially esteemed for something. Heikki
Ikäheimo has pointed out connections between this and mutual gratitude. I would like to add
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But it is still mutual in some sense, because the attitudes of the guitar-player
make a constitutive difference to the role that recognition plays in selfrelations. What matters here is whether the guitar-player takes the art-critic to
be a good art-critic, and thus a relevant and competent judge in this issue. If
the critic understood the artist in the light that was intended and made good
points, then his criticism cannot be just brushed aside. Positive comments
from competent judges and significant others matter more. In the
paradigmatic cases, recognition is relevant to self-relations.
In a less paradigmatic case, if A takes B to be an excellent guitar-player, but B
does not know of this, or does not care about A s views (because he does not
take A s judgements as competent or relevant in general), or does not think
that this particular judgement is well-founded (say, the critic did not realize
the ironic allusions, which were the point of the piece), or is not centrally
concerned about what other people say about his guitar-playing (say, because
he identifies himself more with his professional role), it may be that this
criticism does not affect the self-relation of B at all.19
In general, the attitudes of B determine whether A relevantly and successfully
takes B as X. Some of these attitudes are: B knows of A, B thinks of A as a
competent judge in this case and B knows of and understands and accepts A s
judgement that B is X , and that it matters to B what others think of her Xhood.20 This also implies the minimal mutuality that both take both to be
recognizers in general.
Can we say that such features that figure in successful or relevant
recognition, are necessary conditions of recognition? With some
qualifications, we can say that every form of recognition necessarily
presupposes that both take both to be recognizers. The qualifications concern
potential persons (or potential recognizers in general) and imaginable cases,
where there is some kind of esteem and some kind of love, but yet no
judgement concerning the status of the other as a recognizer.
What about the cases where B does not take A to be generally a competent or
relevant judge in the issue at hand? Are they cases of recognition at all?
that there are other forms of esteem and appreciation, which are forms of recognition relevant
for self-esteem, over and above the gratitude for one’s contributions. See Laitinen 2002a.
19 For closer analyses of these less paradigmatic cases, and some views of what conditions are
sufficient or necessary, see Ikäheimo & Laitinen (forthcoming)
20 There is a further question whether we want to say that the judgement A is X is true? If so,
it should leave room for the possibility that A is X comes to be true in these processes of
recognition. Furthermore, we may want to say that there is mutual recognition, even though
the evaluative views of both the recognizer and recognizee could be further criticized.
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Recognition matters more if it comes from a competent and relevant judge,
but competence and relevance seem to come in degrees, so these conditions
are better taken as qualifications of the recognition in question than as
necessary conditions. It may be for example that B has no view at all
concerning A’s competence. Possibly even quite irrelevant recognition is just
that, recognition but irrelevant.
B s self-relations depend on recognition in general, including recognition from
A among others, and including this particular claim by A among other claims.
Here, a holistic approach is in place. Single judgements are always interpreted
against the background of one’s general sense of self, and sense of how others
view me. Sometimes single comments from others may have very crucial
effects, often they are just drops in the ocean.
The same thing can be said of the question whether it matters to B what others
say of her X-hood, for example, that it does not matter to me what others
think of me as a guitar-player. Again, such mattering comes in degrees, and
even irrelevant recognition is recognition.
What about the conditions that B is aware of A’s claim that “B is X”, and
understands it and further that B accepts it, because he or she agrees with the
judgement? These conditions try to analyze what “successfully” means. It
seems that awareness is a necessary condition for recognition to take place,
but understanding comes in degrees. Further, it seems that something can be
a case of recognition even where the recognizer herself does not agree with
the judgement. Indeed, often the views of competent and relevant judges are
all the more relevant if they differ from my own views.
Three classes of recognition and a plurality of
principles of social justice
It is possible to classify different kinds of recognition at different levels of
abstraction, and with different interests. On different levels of generality,
there are a different number of forms (or types or kinds or sorts or species) of
recognition.
Related to Hegel and Honneth, I have suggested that we can distinguish three
classes of recognition. Differing from Honneth’s historical and social
theoretical interest, I suggested a logical or systematic distinction. In the case
of persons, A can relate to B in a universalistic way as a person, in a
particularistic way as a certain kind of person, and in a singularistic way as a
certain person. The same goes of course for other recognizers than persons,
and a similar threefold distinction can be made for various types of
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identification. It depends on one’s theoretical purposes whether such a tight
threefold distinction is of use.21
This threefold distinction is exemplified, but not exhausted, by three different
principles of distribution relevant to the theme of social justice and social
equality: egalitarian universalism distributing to each equally (independently
of which and what kind of person is in question), meritarian principle of desert
distributing to each according to his or her achievements (independently of
which person is in question) and favouritistic principle of legitimate
“nepotism”, in which someone distributes to those, whom she owes special
responsibility, like her children or other persons to whom she has special
attachment to (independently of what kind of person the person in question is).
Nepotism is criticizable only when it replaces other (e.g. egalitarian or
meritocractic) valid considerations.
Of these, the principle of equal respect is egalitarian at two levels. While all
normative principles are egalitarian at a metalevel so that the principle applies
to all people in the same way, equal respect is egalitarian also at the substantial
level suggesting that the basic rights and basic standing of persons ought to be
distributed in a uniform and difference-blind fashion. There may be other
principles like the principle of desert, which is egalitarian only at the
metalevel, but substantively leads to differential distribution, in accordance to
the different merits of people. As Nancy Fraser (2003) among others has
suggested, the egalitarian principle of equal standing of persons has relevance
in various contexts, including the civil rights, basic moral and political rights
but also in terms of participatory parity at workplace, at family and at
society at large. Everyone ought to be entitled to minimum welfare and equal
standing as a participant of the social life, totally irrespective of their merits.
But on top of that, I think Axel Honneth is right to suggest that social esteem,
which is often connected to economic rewards, is dependent on the actual
contributions. So there are different kinds of recognition, leading to
substantively different principles, equal difference-blind respect and
difference-sensitive esteem for example.
The threefold distinction I have suggested is illuminating only in some
contexts and for some purposes. For example, it draws a relevant distinction
in what politics of difference may mean: does it refer particularistically to
qualitative distinctness in terms of relevant features or singularistically to
Note that “recognizer”, like possibly “person”, is a concept which needs to be supplied with
some further concept to answer the question what is the “primary kind” of that agent (human
being, group, state), and which provides the existence- persistence- and identity-conditions of
that agent. (See Baker: Persons and Bodies.)
21
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irreplacable individuals. It also corresponds to three classes of self-relations:
the relation to oneself as a free and equal person among others, as a certain
kind of person, and as this singular individual person. Yet, I do not think this
threefold division is the most interesting level of abstraction in all cases. Most
importantly, I think there is a plurality of values and norms relevant to social
justice and modern good life, and any three basic values or three basic norms
do not encompass the whole spectre. The three classes are indeed classes with
more than one member.
For example, the particularistic principles, which focus on certain kinds of
persons, may include not only the meritarian principle, but also the principle
of need or the principle of free exchange.22 Michael Walzer has convincingly
shown that the last two are valid principles in some spheres of justice: the
resources that health care has at its disposal should be distributed according
to need, whereas the things that are for sale ought to be governed by and
large by the principle of free exchange.23 Walzer s point is that there is a
plurality of spheres of justice, each governend by the relevant distributionprinciple. Further, the specification of the meritarian principle can lead to
specification of rival principles, which may be valid in different contexts.
Further, there are different scopes of universalistic principles, depending on
whether we talk about all persons, all human persons, all autonomous human
persons, all legal subjects or all citizens. At each level we can say that
everyone ought to be treated fundamentally as equals.24 But not all persons
have all the rights that autonomous persons have, and whatever legal rights
there are in any system of law, they concern only those who are legal subjects
of that system instead of some other.25
But it may also be that these principles are mixed cases. Honneth takes his third form of
recognition (love or care) and recognition as a needy being, to go together. It seems to me that
needs figure in all forms of recognition, for example, we can look after someone s needs
simply because that person is a person (universalistic concern in saving an unknown person
from drowning), or as a reward for more or less great contributions (a well-known poor poet
getting money for food), or as expressions of special concern (looking after the needs of a
child). There is a universalistic element in that everyone ought to have the right to own
things. There is no meritarian element because it is a different thing to deserve something and
to own it. For the latter, it suffices that one has gained what one owns in free exchange. There
is no injustice if there are two equally deserving persons in other respects, who own different
things. If only one of them, say, made a deal, then only that person has entitlement to the
goods he gained with the deal.
23 As long as VAT-taxation or some such mechanism takes care of the state’s share.
24 I am less sure whether we can legitimately say this about all recognizers - is there a respect
in which human persons and states ought to be treated as equals?
25 Further, it seems that the normative relevance of group-memberships may be based on
special attachments (“this is my defining community, hence I have special responsibilities or
sympathies towards it”), or on its evaluative features (say, a group of Nobel-prize winners).
22
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Even though it may be illuminating in some contexts to focus on three types
of recognition, there seem to be more valid principles relevant to social justice.
Honneth seems to hold there are importantly three principles.26 On the other
hand, Honneth seems to allow that in the context of any particular society,
there may well be a plurality of values, but there are context-transcending
valid principles, which serve as a basis of a context-transcending formal
theory of modern good life. I think there is greater plurality of such contexttranscending values and principles as well.27 Therefore the three classes of
principles of recognition are bound to contain more valid principles than one
each.28 In this paper I cannot develop a theory of social justice any further, I
wish merely to make the point that there may well be an irreducible plurality
of valid principles.
What is good life, especially autonomous good life,
and what kind of preconditions does it have?
Teleological theories of good societies start from assumptions concerning
good life. I would agree with this starting-point as long as we bear in mind
that social justice is not merely a matter of maximizing the sum of good life
with any means possible, but there are moral obligations and rules of fair
distribution, which limit the acceptable ways of pursuing good life.29 I think
both Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor do in fact accept such deontological
side-constraints although these may remain implicit in their theories.
Concerning the notion of good life, Honneth (1992) has stressed that certain
kinds of positive self-relations are necessary for good life and self-realization,
and that recognition is in turn necessary for good life in contributing to these
So it may not always be clear whether in showing special recognition to a certain group we
do this because it is this group, or because it is this kind of group.
26 He has also considered the possibility that the demands of cultural minorities present a
fourth form of recognition (see Honneth 2003, 2004).
27 Thus I am critical of Nancy Fraser s (2003) normative monism focusing on the admittedly
important principle of participatory parity . I agree with Honneth that Fraser s proposal fails
to avoid evaluative commitments. Without evaluative pre-understandings one cannot tell
which kinds of parity matter, or to which direction one should improve things. This makes
Fraser s proposal vulnerable to so called leveling down -objection. If some people are blind
and some possess sight, full parity does not prevail. (Or if it does, change the example to
some impairment of parity). So should we make everyone blind in the name of parity?
28 See Laitinen 2003 for a defence of value pluralism.
29 Doing constantly the morally right thing is one ingredient of good life, but one can do the
right thing in any circumstances, and yet some circumstances are better for flourishing than
some others: thus some morally right lives are better in terms of flourishing than some other
morally right lives. It does not follow, but it may be true, that some morally less good lives
are better in terms of flourishing than some morally more ideal lives.
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positive self-relations. These self-relations are first of all basic self-confidence,
which provides the minimum courage to say no that autonomy requires.
Emotional relationships of loving acceptance and care tend to promote such
self-confidence. Secondly, there is self-respect, the view of oneself as equal
person among others, capable of acting responsibly, autonomously and
rationally. Being respected by others as an autonomous person promotes
one s self-respect. Thirdly, there is self-esteem, positive relationship to one s
particular capacities and achievements, which social esteem in turn tends to
promote.
Nancy Fraser has posed a good question to Honneth, namely whether intact
identity consisting of such positive self-relations, and the corresponding
relations of recognition, are constituents (ingredients) of good life, or
preconditions (prerequisites) of good life. She points out that Honneth has used
them in both roles (2003, 235-6, fn 15). I think that Honneth is right that
recognition is both a constituent and a precondition of good life, but it may be
that its role as a precondition is the more important one for critical social
theory. Why? Because the task of the society is to provide the preconditions of
good life, and it is up to the individual what to make of them.
Our views of the role of recognition among the prerequisites of good life
depend of course on what we think good life is, and under modern
conditions, what we think autonomous good life is. Honneth, too, has in mind
precisely autonomous good life.
It is quite clear that what good life consists in is a matter of dispute. I take the
best view to be a pluralist one claiming first of all that different cultures
provide a plurality of models of life which are mutually incompatible, but
which may each be good versions of human flourishing. Further, there is a
plurality of equally good models of life within the cultures or societies. They
contain many different roles through which one can realize one s capacities.
I take it that the best theories of good life try to capture both objective and
subjective elements. There are some objective needs and objective standards of
worthwhileness, but in addition the subjective feel of life is crucial. Both are
necessary for human flourishing, and both objective and subjective elements
are capable of making life less than good. For example, lack of any
meaningful activities to participate in, or lack of any subjective feelings of
happiness or satisfaction can be unbearable and make life not worth living.
Drawing from Martha Nussbaum, Christine Korsgaard and Joseph Raz whose
theories are in details quite different, something like the following core
conception of human well-being can be found. Good life consists of subjectively
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satisfactory and more or less successful engagement in humanly worthwhile
activities. In other words, good life is active life in actualizing humanly
worthwhile capacities, engaging in humanly worthwhile activities, and in
humanly worthwhile relationships, in a sufficiently successful way, and in a
non-alienated, sufficiently authentic way, that is wholeheartedly or in a
subjectively satisfactory manner, feeling sufficiently happy.
Because nowadays autonomous freedom is such a crucial value, we can add the
premise of autonomous freedom to that characterization, and ask what is
autonomous good life? Like any good life, it consists of subjectively satisfactory
and successful engagement in humanly worthwhile activities, which are
furthermore autonomously chosen (Raz). Furthermore, as Philip Pettit has
recently stressed, true autonomous freedom in the full sense may demand
that fully autonomous life can only be lived under conditions in which other
individuals and the political institutions recognize and guarantee one s right to
make such autonomous choices.
If that is what autonomous good life consists in, then what kind of
preconditions does it have? Quite readily, we have at our disposal various
ideas of the different preconditions which are stressed differently by different
theories. One way to approach this is to ask what is it that the so-called
theories of positive freedom demand in addition to the negative freedom from
interference? They claim that there are all kinds of preconditions for actually
living an autonomous good life. There are obviously material preconditions as
Marxists have stressed. There are psychological preconditions in terms of the
psychic balance, and in terms of one s economy of desires and emotions and
the cognitive capacities. Further, there are preconditions concerning one s
opportunities in meaningful action. These consist in one s cultural
environment, which ought to provide opportunities to set oneself meaningful
goals or to engage in meaningful activities. In other words, there ought to
exist a civilization or a way of life, which provides roles through which one
can realize one s capacities. These are often stressed in Charles Taylor s work.
In addition to these, there are preconditions that Honneth has stressed
concerning one s intersubjective environment consisting of the attitudes of
the others including respect, esteem and care. Finally, there are preconditions
concerning the institutional settings, especially political institutions and the
norms that govern the use of coercion by state, and which ought to guarantee
one s autonomy. Thus we have at least five kinds of preconditions: material,
psychological, cultural, intersubjective and institutional. Whether one accepts
the positive theories of freedom as theories of freedom or not, these
preconditions of good life or autonomous good life are hard to rebut. The real
controversies are more likely to concern the best interpretations of them, or
the role of state in supporting them.
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To repeat, good autonomous life consists of subjectively rewarding and
objectively successful engagement in objectively worthwhile activities and
relationships, which are autonomously chosen, under institutions
guaranteeing autonomy. And it has five types of preconditions: psychological,
material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional.
Before taking a closer look at these preconditions, it is worth pointing out that
they may well figure also as constituents of good life. Let us see if this is true of
the intersubjective element, of such relations of recognition where the
recognizers are individual persons.30 We have seen that interpersonal
recognition is something where there are two recognizers, who mutually take
each other as persons, and possibly further as certain kind of persons, or as
certain persons, and accept the normative implications of such takings.
Examples of such recognition are respect, esteem and love as discussed by
Honneth.
Arguably, engaging in human relations, which include respect, esteem and
love, are among the objectively worthwhile human activities.31 Thus, leading a
good life partly consists in engaging in recognitive relations. Further, it may be
that the statuses and rights granted in recognition may be partly what actual
autonomy or actual freedom of an individual consists in. That is, one is not
fully free if the state and the people around one do not guarantee that one can
exercise one s autonomy. So both recognizing others and being recognized
oneself can be constitutive aspects of autonomous good life.
Successful engagement in relationships of recognition is a constituent of good
life, but it does not cover the whole of good life. Activities which are not
recognitional, say ones which one does on one s own, may be equally
worthwhile and constitutive of one s good life.
Interpersonal recognition and the subjective aspect
of good life
What is the role and place of recognition among the preconditions of
autonomous good life? First of all, quite simply, intersubjective recognition is
directly one of the five kinds of preconditions of autonomous good life.
Disrespect or hostile or denigrating attitudes of others directly mean that
one s intersubjective environment does not promote good life.
30
31
Note that also the institutional element is partly one of recognition .
And so is political participation, which presupposes and implies all kinds of recognition.
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We see why this is so when we consider the relevance recognition has to the
subjective aspect of good life.32 The subjective experiences of misrecognition or
insults affect one s flourishing directly: the bad feelings, unhappiness, misery
or anger caused by insults and misrecognition affect one s flourishing over
and above affecting one s self-respect, self-esteem and self-confidence. One
may have very strong and stable self-relations but still experiences of
misrecognition can make one very unhappy. Such experiences of
misrecognition may further alienate one from one s community or from the
institutions that one lives in, thus affecting one s sense of good life, and thus
good life itself. Human flourishing is not independent from the subjective
views, so such bad experiences, if continuous and significant enough, suffice
to make life less than good.
I think this is a very powerful aspect of an argument against social injustice,
social inequality and social exclusion. It is not only the other objective
preconditions of good life that principles of justice, or equality, or inclusion
try to guarantee. Experiences of misrecognition as such make life worse than it
otherwise would be. It is not only injuries, but also insults that count.
Intersubjective, psychological and institutional
preconditions: Honneth
The recognitional attitudes of others are directly one of the preconditions of
good life, through shaping one s experiences. This is important but not the
whole story. One of Axel Honneth s central points has been to point out
systematical linkage between the psychological self-relations, intersubjective
attitudes of interpersonal recognition, and institutional settings such as family,
labour market and the state. So Honneth has shown the structural
interconnection between three types of preconditions of good life, namely
psychological, intersubjective and political.33 One can try to improve them in
one package, because they affect one another.
First of all, intersubjective attitudes of recognition affect self-relations. The
positive self-relations which are a condition of successful autonomous pursuit
There is a possible gap between subjective experience and misrecognition, but experiences
of misrecognition may be directly constitutive of the subjective element of good life.
33 Compare to Christopher Zurn s characterization in Recognition, Redistribution, and
Democracy: Dilemmas of Honneth s Critical Social Theory (forthcoming in European Journal
of Philosophy): Honneth ... develops his critical theory through an account of the structural
interconnection between a) the three levels of individual identity development, b) the three
forms of intersubjective recognition required for each level, and c) the forms of social
organization needed as preconditions for the healthy, undistorted self-realization of that
society s members. In preparing this paper, Zurn s manuscript was of great help.
32
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of a good life may be impossible to acquire without recognition. These selfrelations include self-respect, self-esteem and self-confidence. Sufficient selfconfidence, and sufficient self-esteem and sufficient self-respect are needed by
autonomous life. Thus these healthy self-relations can be called psychological
preconditions of good life, and they are a different thing than the subjective
experiences. I mentioned above that subjective experiences affect one s quality
of life over and above the effects on the self-relations, but correspondingly
these self-relations affect one s capabilities over and above their effect on the
subjective feel of life. They form so to speak an objective, real, psychological
condition of good life. The prevailing relations of interpersonal recognition
also make some political institutions more stable and more legitimate than
others, in the sense of the feelings of solidarity that are necessary for
functioning democrary etc.
Secondly, self-relations affect one s relations to others, and the prevailing selfrelations make some political institutions more legitimate and stable than
others. Finally, institutional settings sanction, promote and prevent certain
types of self-relations and intersubjective attitudes. The political institutions
also recognize and are recognized, so recognition takes place not only at the
level of intersubjective preconditions of good life, but also at the level of
political-institutional preconditions of good life.
So the Honnethian triangle of psychological, intersubjective and institutional
considerations forms a quite tight package. It is important to analytically
distinguish them, but it is also important to map the systematic
interconnections. There is no guarantee that the respect or esteem on behalf of
others translates into self-respect or self-esteem. The psychological dynamics
are manifold, and dependent on the person s own attitudes, there is no direct
one-to-one determination.
To recap, intersubjective relations of recognition are directly one of the five
preconditions, and indirectly affect at least the other two, namely
psychological resources and political settings. These are the three kinds of
preconditions that Honneth is most directly interested in.
Cultural and material preconditions: Taylor and
Fraser
Charles Taylor in turn has stressed the cultural or civilizational preconditions
of good life.34 These are the preconditions concerning the so called cultural
environment consisting in opportunities to engage in meaningful activities or
34
See eg. Taylor 1985, 1989. I discuss this in Laitinen 2003.
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in other words the existence of a civilization or a way of life which provides
roles through which one can realize one s capacities. I think this claim
captures something important: there are indeed civilizational preconditions,
cultural horizons, which cannot be reduced to relations of interpersonal
recognition, they cover whole frameworks of belief and evaluation. For
example, in Ethics of Authenticity, Taylor distinguishes between the dialogical
or intersubjective prerequisites of good, authentic life, and the horizons of
significance that good life presupposes.
And although identification with some values is sometimes called
recognition of such values, it is importantly different from interpersonal
recognition as I pointed out in section one.35 It follows that cultural struggles
concerning definitions of values are not directly struggles for recognition:
values are not the kind of entities that can be recognized, given the strict
definition. Value disagreements are not directly struggles for interpersonal
recognition: two persons A and B may debate about, say, the value of art, the
value of courage or the value of wilderness, without paying any attention to
the relevance of this to their self-esteem. Yet value debates may have two
kinds of indirect implications to interpersonal recognition: when the value of
art or courage is under dispute, artists or courageous people may have at
stake their self-esteem as instantiating the values in question. But also, when
the value of wilderness is disputed, although wilderness is not a potential
recognizee, the debating parties may have at stake their self-esteem as valuers,
as having particular value-orientations. The issue can be at the core of
someone s value-orientation and identity, and therefore one s social esteem
can be indirectly dependent on the cultural acknowledgement of the value in
question.
Now we can add that the Honnethian Triangle of psychological,
intersubjective and institutional dependencies is actually infiltrated with
cultural meanings through and through. And furthermore, we can talk about
the connections between culture and psyche, for example in terms of mastery
of cultural vocabularies, but also in terms of self-interpretations, and between
culture and political institutions, in the sense that institutions embody certain
values.
Finally, we can turn to the material preconditions of a good life. Nancy Fraser
and Brian Barry among others have made the accusation that the theorists of
multiculturalism and recognition tend to overlook material interests, or at
least divert attention away from the material preconditions of good life. If
Clearly the relationship between a value and a person is not that of mutual recognition, it is
something like commitment or orientation or identification with or acknowledgment .
35
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valid, this criticism is quite strong, as everyone surely agrees that good life
has material preconditions.
Now paradoxically, Fraser makes her critical point against Honneth in terms
of cultural valuations of identity versus material goods. In my view it is rather
Charles Taylor who focuses on the cultural preconditions on good life,
whereas Honneth s theory remains quite implicit in this respect. Fraser takes
Honneth to talk about cultural valuation, but it seems to me that Honneth
talks about the triangle of psychological-intersubjective-institutional
preconditions of good life (and Honneth 2003 replies to Fraser that his view is
not merely cultural ). It is Charles Taylor s theories that are the place to look
at to get the sense in which cultural or civilizational horizons are irreducible
as preconditions of good life. Indeed, Fraser talks about culture mostly in
the sense directly relevant for recognition and misrecognition, i.e. as
stereotypes and cultural codifications of some people and their features as
higher or lower. Such codifications are indeed ingredients of cultural
horizons, but entire cultural horizons are much wider consisting of beliefsystems and frameworks of evaluations in a broader sense.
If we conceive of recognition not as cultural valuations as such, but as
different kinds of relations to persons that other persons and institutions may
have, what is the relationship of interpersonal recognition to the material
preconditions of good life? I will suppose now that recognition
paradigmatically consists of acts and attitudes (see above), and shall examine
how redistribution is related to such cases of recognition.
There are at least four different possible cases: First, to some extent at least,
the material preconditions can be fulfilled by nature and people s own action,
and no redistributive action on behalf of the state and others is needed. To that
extent the material preconditions of good life can be in place without any
redistributive and recognitional action on behalf of others.
Second, take a case where other persons or the state respect the basic rights of
an individual, including the right to minimum welfare, and as an expression
of that respect redistribute material goods always when the rights of the
individual demand such redistribution. In this case redistributive acts and
recognitive acts are one and the same thing. One and the same action is both
redistribution and recognition, when the right attitudes are in place.
But thirdly, it seems that redistribution can take place in ways, which do not
count as recognition. There are two kinds of cases: behaviour in which the
agent acts as if he or she really respects, esteems or loves the one receiving the
material goods, but in fact the motives of the agent are purely egoistic. Or, if
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the distribution is done by an economic system which literally has no motives
at all. In these cases there may be redistribution of material goods without
recognition (if recognition is action with the correct attitudes). And in many
cases, what the recipient really wants are just the material goods, and the
recipient need not care whether these acts are genuine cases of recognition. In
these cases, redistribution without recognition is conceptually possible and
sufficient for the recipients.36 Yet, this is based on a normative demand: the
recipient may think he or she is entitled to these material goods, say, because
of the norm that everyone s basic needs ought to be met. The recipient surely
thinks that everyone ought to acknowledge that norm, but he or she may
think that what makes the real difference is that others act in accordance with
that valid norm, whether or not they are motivated by the validity of that
norm. If the others act for egoistic motivations in accordance with that norm,
and supply the goods that the recipient is entitled to, the recipient may be
fully satisfied. This is so, if the recipient demands merely that others act in
accordance with valid norms of redistribution. These are cases of
redistribution without genuine recognition.37
Fourthly, there may be patterns of redistribution which are stigmatizing etc,
and these are cases in which both recognition and misrecognition are present:
genuine recognition of the person takes place, but it takes place in such a
disrespectful way, that it constitutes misrecognition.
So the relationship between the material preconditions of good life and
recognition are manifold: sometimes material preconditions are to some
extent in place without redistribution. And when redistribution takes place, it
may be a case of recognition, or partial misrecognition, or not a case of
recognition at all.
Assuming the view of recognition, which takes both action and attitudes into
account, lead to a divided judgement between Fraser and Honneth in their
debate about recognition and redistribution. Honneth seems to be right in that
redistribution and recognition may be fulfilled by one and the same act. Yet
Fraser seems to be right in that these are still two analytically distinct
perspectives on the same action. Furthermore, the fact that recognition and
redistribution may come apart not only analytically but also in some real
Note that the gratitude of the recipient may be smaller or non-existent in cases where
redistribution is not based on real recognition, but redistribution in accordance to valid norms
but for ultimately egoistic motives. Heikki Ikäheimo has made this point in an article in
Finnish.
37 Further, even if the agent acknowledges the norm, it is not the same as that he or she directly
recognizes the recipient. But as acknowledgement or norms and interpersonal recognition are
intertwined, the case is one of indirect recognition. See above.
36
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cases, supports the view that individual cases of recognition and
redistribution need not always be one and the same thing.38
Conclusion
In this article I tried first to analyze what recognition is. And what is
emerging in the second section of this article is a somewhat complex and
hopefully rich picture of interpersonal and institutional recognition as a
precondition of autonomous good life.
Positive recognition enables good life, whereas misrecognition and insults can
make life worse. The statuses guaranteed by the state directly constitute my
autonomy. Further, engaging in relations of recognition is a constituent of
good life, and enriches life on its own.
But interpersonal and institutional forms of recognition also affect the
psychological preconditions of good life, and are in a complex relationship
with the cultural and material preconditions. Through affecting these other
objective preconditions of good life, insufficient recognition may lead
indirectly to injuries. Thus, recognition is a precondition and a constituent of
life on both the subjective and objective aspects, misrecognition can cause
both injuries and insults, and they both can make one s life worse.
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38
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Ikäheimo, Heikki (2002a). On the Genus and Species of Recognition ,
Inquiry, vol 45, No 4. 447-462.
Ikäheimo, Heikki (2002b). Taylor on Something called ‘Recognition’, in
Laitinen and Smith, eds., 99-111.
Ikäheimo, H., Laitinen, A. & Quante, M. (2004) Leistungsgerechtigkeit: Ein
Prinzip der Anerkennung für kulturelle Besonderheiten in Christoph Halbig
& Michael Quante eds., Axel Honneth: Sozialphilosophie zwischen Ethik und
Anerkennung, Münsteraner Vorlesung zur Philosophie Bd. 5. Münster: LITVerlag.
Ikäheimo H, and Laitinen A.(Forthcoming) Analyzing Recognition:
Identification, Acknowledgement and Recognitive Attitudes towards
Persons
Christine Korsgaard (2003), included in Joseph Raz 2003
Laitinen, Arto (2002) Interpersonal Recognition - a Response to Value or a
Precondition of Personhood? Inquiry vol 45, no 4, 463-478
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Laitinen, Arto (2003) Strong Evaluation Without Sources. University of
Jyväskylä: Jyväskylä
Laitinen, A & Nicholas H. Smith (eds.)(2002) Perspectives on the Philosophy of
Charles Taylor. The Philosophical Society of Finland: Helsinki
Margalit, Avishai (2001) Recognition II: Recognizing the Brother and the
Other. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Supplementary Volume 75, 127-139.
Nussbaum, Martha (1990) Aristotelian Social Democracy , in Liberalism and the
Good, ed. R.Bruce Douglass, Gerald M.Mara, H. Richardson. New York:
Routledge
O Neill, J., ed. (1996) Hegel s Dialectic of Desire and Recognition. Texts and
Commentary. Albany: SUNY.
Pettit, Philip (2001) A Theory of Freedom. From the Psychology to the Politics of
Agency. Polity.
Raz, Joseph (1995) Ethics in the Public Domain. Rev.ed. Oxford: Oxford U.P.
Raz, Joseph (2003). The Practice of Value. Oxford: UP.
Siep, Ludwig (1979) Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktische Philosophie.
Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag.
Smith, Nicholas, ed. (2002) Reading McDowell. On Mind and World. Routledge
Taylor, Charles (1985) Philosophy and Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers vol. 2
Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Taylor, Charles (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Taylor, Charles (1991) Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP
Taylor, Charles (1992) Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition . Amy
Gutmann, ed. Princeton: Princeton UP
Taylor, Charles (2002) On Identity, Alienation and Consequences of
September 11th. An Interview by Hartmut Rosa and Arto Laitinen. In Laitinen
& Smith eds.
Walzer, Michael (1983) Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.
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Williams, Robert R. (1997) Hegel s Ethics of Recognition. University of
California Press: Berkeley/Los Angeles/London.
Zurn, Christopher (forthcoming) Recognition, Redistribution, and
Democracy: Dilemmas of Honneth s Critical Social Theory
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Social Inequality Today, Macquarie University, 12 November 2003
Social Equality, Recognition and
Preconditions of Good Life
Arto Laitinen
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä
Armala@yfi.jyu.fi
Abstract
In this paper I analyze interpersonal and institutional recognition and discuss the
relation of different types of recognition to various principles of social justice
(egalitarianism, meritarianism, legitimate favouritism, principles of need and free
exchange). Further, I try to characterize contours of good autonomous life, and ask
what kind of preconditions it has. I will distinguish between five kinds of
preconditions: psychological, material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional.
After examining what the role of recognition is among such preconditions, and how
they figure in the work of Honneth, Fraser and Taylor, I suggest a somewhat complex
and hopefully rich picture of interpersonal and institutional recognition as a
precondition of autonomous good life.
The leading idea of this paper is a combination of the ancient idea that good
societies are those which enable and promote the good life, flourishing or
well-being of the citizens, and the modern idea, that the citizens are to be
taken as autonomous individuals. Theories of recognition, from Fichte and
Hegel onwards, provide a promising theoretical framework for trying to see
people at the same time as individuals and as members of a social whole. This
paper tries to outline ways in which interpersonal and institutional
recognition figures as a constituent and precondition in the lives of modern
autonomous individuals.1
This talk is inspired by the theories of recognition by G.W.F. Hegel, Axel
Honneth, Charles Taylor and Nancy Fraser in particular.2 In the first part of
the paper I ask what is recognition, especially interpersonal and institutional
recognition, thus continuing my joint efforts with Heikki Ikäheimo to analyze
A talk based on this paper was given in the Social Inequality Today -conference 12th
November 2003 at Macquarie University, organized by the Center for Research on Social
Inclusion. Some of the points were discussed also in a separate workshop on recognition. I
wish to thank all the participants for very fruitful discussions, to which I owe a lot.
2 See the references in the bibliography to Honneth, Taylor, Fraser, Hegel.
1
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this concept.3 In discussing different types of recognition, I also discuss
various principles of social justice (egalitarianism, meritarianism, legitimate
favouritism, principle of need and free exchange).
In the second part, I try to characterize contours of good life, especially the
good life of autonomous individuals, and ask what kind of preconditions it
has. I will distinguish between five kinds of preconditions: psychological,
material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional. The point is to examine
what the role of recognition, as defined in the first section, is among such
preconditions. I will also ask whether recognition is not only a prerequisite,
but a constituent or ingredient of good life. Some of the comments I make
concern the difference between recognition and redistribution as debated by
Fraser and Honneth.
What is recognition? Conceptual clarifications
One central idea behind the discourse on recognition is that self-relations of
persons are dependent on the ways that others see and treat us.4 Self-esteem
depends on social esteem, self-respect on respect, basic self-confidence on
love and care, self-consciousness on communicative treatment, self-images on
otherʹs views. As Charles Taylor (1992) has stressed, due recognition is a vital
human need. Denied recognition can cause self-hatred and other forms of
negative self-relations. The point can be put by saying that healthy selfrelations are dependent on the recognitional environment consisting of the
ways that other persons and institutions take us.
Following Hegelʹs views, Honneth and Taylor and Fraser maintain that
modernization has meant that an egalitarian sphere of recognition has
emerged: instead of slavery or castes or hereditary hierarchical social statuses
all human persons are nowadays taken to be free and equal, and to possess
equal standing. This means that various features (gender, ʹraceʹ, class, outlook
etc) ought to be treated in a difference-blind fashion. In practice this battle
against unjustified prejudices is still going on, but at the level of ideas,
universalism is more or less universally accepted. Taylor uses the term
ʺpolitics of universalityʺ of such difference-blind views, and Honneth relates
the term ʺrespectʺ to this basic egalitarian tendency to grant all autonomous
persons an equal legal and moral standing.
See the references in the bibliography by Ikäheimo and Laitinen; for responses to some of
our suggestions, see Honneth 2002 and Honneth 2004. Some of the points made here are more
thoroughly discussed in Ikäheimo and Laitinen (forthcoming). Unlike in Laitinen 2002a, I
focus here on recognition as a precondition and constituent of good life, and not of
personhood as such.
4 See Honneth 1992, Hegel 1977.
3
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Yet, as Taylor and Honneth among others have pointed out, all differencesensitive treatment is not unjustified. Differential esteem based on desert,
merits or achievements or contributions is quite justified, and such social
esteem is relevant for oneʹs self-esteem. Thus it makes a legitimate difference
over and above the equal basic standing, to ask what kind of person is in
question. And quite naturally, special relations and attachments between
people (friendship, family relations etc) make a difference in how we treat one
another. Thus, as Taylor points out, there seem to be legitimate forms of
ʺpolitics of differenceʺ which are not difference-blind, and Honneth stresses
that love and social esteem differ from respect as forms of recognition. Before
discussing the different types of recognition more closely, let us take a look at
the phenomena of recognition at a general level.
Identification, acknowledgement, recognition
Instead of starting head-on by defining necessary and sufficient conditions of
recognition, I wish to build up a paradigm case of full-fledged recognition.
Such a case has several defining features, and it is a further question whether
cases that lack many or even any of these features count as recognition at all.
The theory of recognition presented here is part of a shared project with
Heikki Ikäheimo.5
In one sense of the word, anything can be “recognized”, that is, noticed,
distinguished from its surroundings as “something”, identified and reidentified: cats, mats, airplanes, shadows, persons, laws, dollars, groups,
states. Whatever x is, it can be recognized as x, or some kind of x, or especially
the very individual x that it is. Following the suggestion of Heikki Ikäheimo,
we can agree to reserve the term “identification” for this broad family of
senses of the word “recognition”. The point is to distinguish this from two
other surface usages of the term, in order to avoid confusion. The phenomena
of recognizing the type of an airplane, re-identifying a criminal and having
legal rules that are publicly recognizable all are cases of “identification” in
this sense. This stipulated, technical sense of “identification” covers that
meaning of “recognition” in which we can recognize anything, not only
persons or only values or norms.
In another sense of the word, we recognize norms, values, claims or
considerations when we sincerely accept or endorse them or think they are
valid, relevant or justified. Now this sense of ‘recognition’ is relevant for
understanding social reality and human life: we live in a space of concerns or
space of reasons, and understanding our concerns or the claims we endorse is
5
See the references in bibliography.
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crucial in understanding our actions and reactions. I think it is equally
important to the joint efforts of Fraser and Honneth concerning the relations
of recognition and redistribution, to distinguish recognition of values from
recognition of persons.6 Again, it may be useful to reserve the term
“acknowledgement” to this kind of endorsement or approving awareness of
evaluative and normative elements (see Ikäheimo 2002b, Ikäheimo & Laitinen,
forthcoming). The point is that such abstract things as values or norms do not
have a self-relation, the values and norms simply cannot care whether they
are recognized or not. They cannot have experiences of being misrecognized.
Yet this kind of acknowledgement of values and interpersonal recognition are
intimately intertwined.7 Again, the term “acknowledgement” need not readily
have the connotations meant here, the stipulative point is to distinguish these
phenomena from interpersonal recognition, where insults and effects on selfrelations are possible. “Acknowledgement” in this stipulated sense covers the
cases where the objects of acknowledgement are evaluative features and
normative entities, not themselves persons or recognizers of any other kind.
Now there are all kinds of bearers of value, or all kinds of things with
normative implications, or objects of concern. We live in a “moral
space”(Taylor) or in a “practical reality”(Dancy), our whole world is valueladen and laden with reasons for action. Interpersonal recognition covers a
major area of our practical concerns, for example, the rights of persons, or
concern for the well-being of persons (and other recognizers apart from
persons). But also pieces of art or the wilderness embody values and there are
norms concerning our proper treatment of them. These “bearers of value” can
be moral patients, objects of moral concern, but they cannot have a selfrelation and cannot be recognized in the sense that recognizers can be
recognized.8 We clearly are concerned about other things as well as other
See Laitinen 2002a
Laitinen 2002a
8 If we can identify anything, and acknowledge normative entities like norms, values or claims,
and if we can recognize only other recognizers, then we may need one more term for the
‘recognition’ or ‘appreciation’ or proper treatment of such bearers of value like works of art or
such animals, which are not recognizers. The point is that there is a form of distorted
evaluation, where one in principle acknowledges the norm that “do not destroy valuable
works of art”, and the norm “sexual obscenity should be avoided”, and identifies something
as a valuable but obscene work of art, and destroys it. Yet it may be clear to everyone that this
was an exaggeration, that it was not that obscene. This mistake in all-in judgement-insituation led to mistreatment and mis-appreciation of a valuable work of art. Mis-treatment of
the work of art is not as such misrecognition, because the work of art cannot care (although it
may imply misrecognition of other people who therefore cannot engage with that work of
art). And again, what was not properly acknowledged was the claim “in this case, the
valuable work of art should not be destroyed”. But it was not this claim that was destroyed,
on the contrary this claim may be all the more supported when people realized how
exaggerated the deed was. What was destroyed, and in that sense ‘mistreated’ or
6
7
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recognizers. And if we bear in mind that various virtues or goals of excelling
in different practices are strongly valued or “acknowledged” objects of our
concern, we see that many morally, normatively or evaluatively motivated
social struggles are not literally struggles for recognition. Yet, I think,
Honneth’s point that social struggles are morally motivated and not merely
based on self-interest, is a valid one.
These suggested usages of “identification” and “acknowledgement” leave the
term “recognition” to be used for proper interpersonal or “interrecognitional” recognition. Only recognizers can be recognized in this strict
sense. Such circularity is not vicious or uninformative: one can characterize
the class of potential recognizers without referring to ʺrecognitionʺ. One could
equally well say that only agents of “acknowledging” can be recognized, or
only beings capable of having evaluatively and normatively laden views
about others can be recognized. Or, that only those beings whose self-relation
can be affected by their interpretation of the attitudes of others, are potential
objects of recognition. As it happens, agents of acknowledgement and beings
whose self-relation can be affected in that way are one and the same class,
paradigmatically human persons. I will use the term “recognizer” to refer to
such beings capable of acknowledging, recognizing and having self-relations.
The general form of mutual recognition
Let us start from the general form of mutual recognition: mutual recognition is a
matter of two recognizers mutually taking each other as recognizers of some kind and
accepting the normative implications of such takings. This is, to use Heikki
Ikäheimoʹs phrase, my view concerning the genus of mutual recognition,
whereas various kinds of respect, esteem or love and so on are its species.
What distinguishes recognition from misrecognition is that the former is an
adequate response to the normative requirements in question. These normative
‘misappreciated’, was the work of art. Thus there seems to be a sense in which, say,
“recognizing of the value of old manuscripts” cannot be analyzed to recognizing persons and
acknowledging norms and values, and identifying the thing as a manuscript. To say that the
relevant thing is to identify it as a valuable manuscript may seem like a good move, and it
suggests that one did identity it as a manuscript but did not see it in the right light, as a
valuable one. The downside of this move is that it inflates the meaning of ‘identify’ to cover
all the elements of interpersonal recognition as well: everything that A does in recognizing B
is actually included in A identifying B, if identification means seeing the evaluative features
in the right light. I think that it is correct to say that one has not comprehensively understood
B, if one has not understood B’s evaluative features and normative status, but it is less clear to
me whether one can nevertheless fully correctly identify B and yet be mistaken or ignorant
about some of B’s features.
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requirements are related to the evaluative features that persons can
instantiate, but the levels of norms and values are mutually irreducible.9
Several comments are in place. First of all, this suggested definition or
characterization concerns recognizers in general, whether they are individual
human beings, groups or states. There are interesting questions concerning
the capability of any of these to be a recognizer. Humans are not recognizers
when they are born, and totally disintegrated groups or states cannot have
shared attitudes or joint actions that it takes for them to count as agents of
recognition. Things are complicated by the fact that recognition from others
seems to play a significant role in the development processes where human
persons learn to be agents of recognition themselves.10 The same goes for the
process where a less integrated group of people turns into well integrated one
capable of having the needed attitudes, or where a state-candidate turns into
an independent state. It seems that relations of recognition between the
citizens, and the recognition that the citizens give to the state for its
legitimacy, and recognition received from other states are all different
relations of recognition, which are necessary for a state to exist as an agent of
recognition.11
Secondly, the normative implications in question depend on whether we have
a case of interpersonal recognition between two persons, or international
recognition between two states or peoples (e.g. concerning their independence
and the right to govern themselves and status as a self-governing political
whole), or perhaps between two, say, cultural groups. In addition to such
horizontal cases, we have vertical cases, between an individual and a state, or
between a state and an international organization like United Nations, or
between a state and a minority group etc. Adequate recognition and
Laitinen 2002, Honneth 2002. The question concerning the relation of the deontic layer of
norms, reasons for action, oughts on the one hand, and values, evaluative features, goods on
the other hand is a general issue, not restricted to issues of recognition. In Laitinen 2003 I
criticize Kantian and Habermasian tendencies to divorce these issues too sharply, but I also
criticize Charles Taylor for his relative neglect of the deontic layer of norms, oughts and
reasons for action.
10 See Laitinen 2002a
11 Groups of people and institutions can recognize and be recognized to the extent that groups
and institutions can have the relevant attitudes. And I think groups and institutions can
indeed be agents and have the relevant attitudes, states can recognize each other, states can
recognize individuals as citizens, cultural groups may display disrespect towards one another
etc. Mere collections of individuals, mere aggregates, cannot be collective agents, but groups
which are sufficiently integrated wholes can, given that they have some more or less
institutional forms of opinion-formation (see Pettit: A Theory of Freedom). But it is important to
note that cultures or cultural horizons, as opposed to cultural groups, cannot strictly speaking
recognize other cultures. Cultures, literally speaking, do not have attitudes, as opposed to
individuals and groups, which are acculturated to such cultures. (see Blum)
9
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misrecognition differ in how well the normative implications are taken into
account.
Thirdly, recognition can in principle be analyzed in terms of attitudes, action
or statuses. We can say that a ʺpracticalʺ view of recognition focuses on action,
whereas a ʺsymbolicʺ view focuses on attitudes and their expressions. But
perhaps we do not need to choose between these two views. Attitudes and
actions are intertwined, as action expresses attitudes. Perhaps neither mere
attitudes without the relevant practical behaviour, nor mere ʺexternalʺ action
in conformity to the rules without the genuine attitudes counts as proper
recognition.12 In proper recognition, the person both has the relevant attitudes
and this shows in the way the person acts.
But it is also quite common to analyze recognition in terms of A granting B
the status C (and respecting that status in oneʹs attitudes and behaviour). In
some cases of recognition, this is the most plausible suggestion that comes to
mind (say, citizens are those who have been granted the status), but there are
also cases of recognition in which it is hard to see what the ʺstatusʺ is, say in
admiring someone as a good guitar-player or a virtuous person, and whether
there is any specific ʺgrantingʺ apart from forming the relevant attitude. If one
gets a prize or medal, this is of course something that is granted, but not all
cases of admiration are accompanied by external symbols. Furthermore, a
case where Aʹs status as a citizen (granted by the state) is respected by B
seems less a case of granting a status than having the right kinds of attitudes
and behaving in the right way. Further, the statuses are granted on the basis
of something, that one cognizes and sees as normatively requiring, or
permitting, the granting of the status. Thus, it seems that ʺgranting a statusʺ is
sometimes the appropriate thing to do, but it is only a subclass of all the
appropriate things to do which count as recognition. Thus, recognition seems
to be the right kind of action for the right kind of attitude, and in some cases
the right thing to do may be to grant some or other status. In the same sense,
being recognized (Anerkanntsein) sometimes means that one has acquired
some public normative status, sometimes that one is treated and thought of in
certain ways.
Fourthly, this is an analysis of mutual recognition.13 Mutuality, in its
symmetrical form, demands four things: 1) A takes B as R, 2) B takes A as R, 3)
In Laitinen 2002 I favoured the practical view, but I did not consider the option that both
the attitudes and acts are necessary for recognition, or at least for the central cases of
recognition.
13 Mutual recognition is inherently dialogical, and therefore ʺrecognizee-sensitiveʺ, whereas
ʺrecognizee-insensitiveʺ or ʺrecognizee-centeredʺ forms of recognition are monological,
12
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A takes A as R, 4) B takes B as R. That is, both take each other to be ʺRʺ,
namely recognizers, for example free and equal citizens, or human persons, or
states. This is the outcome in Hegelʹs analysis in Phenomenology and
elsewhere.14
Hegel stresses that self-relation and recognition are mediated by one
another15: ʺEach is the mediating term for the other, through which each
mediates itself with itself and coincides with itself. Each is for itself and for
the other an immediate self-existing being, which at the same time is such
only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as reciprocally
acknowledging each other.ʺ(Hegel, PhG, #184) Or as Ludwig Siep (1977, 137)
puts it: ʺRecognition, as a double-signifying act of two self-consciousnesses, is
a relation in which the relata relate to themselves through the relation to the
other, and relate to the other through their own self-relation. Thus, the selfʹs
relation to itself is made possible by the corresponding relation to the other.ʺ16
Hegelʹs ideal type of mutual recognition ʺas reciprocally acknowledging each
otherʺ takes place in a theoretically fictitious plane where there is only one
focussing on the attitudes of only one of the participants. See Ikäheimo 2002b and Ikäheimo &
Laitinen (forthcoming).
14 This kind of mutual recognition of each other as recognizers can take place not only
between two individual self-consciousnesses, but in principle between any two recognizers,
for example between a state and an individual. The state considers itself to be a recognizer
itself, it assumes it has the legitimate power to grant citizenship. The state recognizes the
individual by granting it citizenship and rights. The individual takes the state to be a
recognizer and thinks that something actually happened when the state granted citizenship,
unlike if it was his neighbourʹs child who wrote the certificate. The individual takes herself to
be a recognizer and thinks that the normative power of the state to recognize is ultimately
based on its legitimacy among the citizenry.
15 ʺBut this action has the double significance of being just as much the doing of the one as the
doing of the other. For this other is likewise independent, self-determining, and there is
nothing in it except what originates through it. The first does not have a merely passive object
before it as in the case of desire. Rather the other is an independent being existing for itself.
Consequently the first may not use the other for its own ends unless the other does for itself
what the first does. The movement [of recognition] is therefore without qualification the
doubled movement of both self-consciousnesses. Each sees the other do the same that it does.
Each does itself what it requires of the other, and does what it does only insofar as the other
does the same. A one-sided action would be useless, since what is supposed to happen can
only come about through the joint action of both.ʺ( Hegel, PhG #182), ʺThe action has double
significance not only because it is an action directed at itself as well as at the other, but also
because it is the joint indivisible action of the one as well as the other.ʺ( Hegel, PhG, #184),
ʺEach is the mediating term for the other, through which each mediates itself with itself and
coincides with itself. Each is for itself and for the other an immediate self-existing being,
which at the same time is such only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as
reciprocally acknowledging each other.ʺ(Hegel, PhG, #184).
16 Translated in Williams 1997, 51.
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person there to recognize me. Of course, when the learning process is over
and I have a decentred worldview in which there is room for other selfconsciousnesses apart from me, I routinely expect there to be other persons
apart from me, and I seldom make mistakes in telling persons from other
beings. Others do not have to engage in a struggle to get recognition from me
if I presume that, say, each adult human is in fact a self-conscious, sane,
rational, responsible recognizer (although I am aware that such expectation
may in some cases turn out to be too optimistic). I encounter similar taken-forgranted recognition in the expectations of others, so none of them alone has
the full responsibility of recognizing me. Thus there are empirical
complexities produced by the number of people we encounter in real life, but
it seems that on a general level it is true that oneʹs self-relations and relations
of recognition are interconnected.
The four conditions 1-4 are not sufficiently detailed, as they could be true by
accident, as it were, without being interconnected in any way. As such, the
four conditions allow for cases in which A and B have never met, and have
only heard of each other on the radio, and they have no idea that they have
heard of each other on the radio. Maybe this is quite acceptable, certainly this
is not a case of misrecognition, and maybe such ʺdisconnectedʺ forms do count
as recognition, although they cannot have effects of self-relations, because the
recognizer is not aware of them.17 But maybe we do not want such cases to
count as recognition at all, once we analyze paradigm cases of full-fledged
recognition (which need not be a matter of face-to-face encounters, but which
it is easiest to imagine that way), which is more demanding in terms of the
kind of mutuality in question.
These more demanding, ʺconnectedʺ forms of mutuality can be illuminated,
when we focus on cases which are not strictly symmetrical over and above the
minimum that both take each other to be recognizers. Take a case where an
art-critic takes a guitar-player to be an excellent artist. This is not symmetrical:
the guitar-player does not in return take the art-critic to be an excellent artist.18
Although it makes a huge difference if I can really take it for granted that everyone tends to
take everyone, including me, as a person. Really encountering misrecognition is painful, but
also to know that one would encounter misrecognition somewhere, say in some officially
racist state, may have bad effects on oneʹs self-image.
18 Honneth stresses, following Mead’s idea of division of labour, that in a good society
everyone has a task or a role in which one can try to make a contribution to society and gain
social esteem. One can think that ʺit does not matter that I am no great guitar-player, my
contribution to the society comes through my work, and I do my work well. Although I am
no celebrity and get no society-wide attention to my contributions, our occupation (say,
teachers or truck-drivers) in general enjoys social esteem, and it is clear that the society needs
us.ʺ So in a good society everyone would be socially esteemed for something. Heikki
Ikäheimo has pointed out connections between this and mutual gratitude. I would like to add
17
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But it is still mutual in some sense, because the attitudes of the guitar-player
make a constitutive difference to the role that recognition plays in selfrelations. What matters here is whether the guitar-player takes the art-critic to
be a good art-critic, and thus a relevant and competent judge in this issue. If
the critic understood the artist in the light that was intended and made good
points, then his criticism cannot be just brushed aside. Positive comments
from competent judges and significant others matter more. In the
paradigmatic cases, recognition is relevant to self-relations.
In a less paradigmatic case, if A takes B to be an excellent guitar-player, but B
does not know of this, or does not care about Aʹs views (because he does not
take Aʹs judgements as competent or relevant in general), or does not think
that this particular judgement is well-founded (say, the critic did not realize
the ironic allusions, which were the point of the piece), or is not centrally
concerned about what other people say about his guitar-playing (say, because
he identifies himself more with his professional role), it may be that this
criticism does not affect the self-relation of B at all.19
In general, the attitudes of B determine whether A relevantly and successfully
takes B as X. Some of these attitudes are: B knows of A, B thinks of A as a
competent judge in this case and B knows of and understands and accepts Aʹs
judgement that ʺB is Xʺ, and that it matters to B what others think of her Xhood.20 This also implies the minimal mutuality that both take both to be
recognizers in general.
Can we say that such features that figure in ʺsuccessfulʺ or ʺrelevantʺ
recognition, are necessary conditions of recognition? With some
qualifications, we can say that every form of recognition necessarily
presupposes that both take both to be recognizers. The qualifications concern
potential persons (or potential recognizers in general) and imaginable cases,
where there is some kind of esteem and some kind of love, but yet no
judgement concerning the status of the other as a recognizer.
What about the cases where B does not take A to be generally a competent or
relevant judge in the issue at hand? Are they cases of recognition at all?
that there are other forms of esteem and appreciation, which are forms of recognition relevant
for self-esteem, over and above the gratitude for one’s contributions. See Laitinen 2002a.
19 For closer analyses of these less paradigmatic cases, and some views of what conditions are
sufficient or necessary, see Ikäheimo & Laitinen (forthcoming)
20 There is a further question whether we want to say that the judgement ʺA is Xʺ is true? If so,
it should leave room for the possibility that ʺA is Xʺ comes to be true in these processes of
recognition. Furthermore, we may want to say that there is mutual recognition, even though
the evaluative views of both the recognizer and recognizee could be further criticized.
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Recognition matters more if it comes from a competent and relevant judge,
but competence and relevance seem to come in degrees, so these conditions
are better taken as qualifications of the recognition in question than as
necessary conditions. It may be for example that B has no view at all
concerning A’s competence. Possibly even quite irrelevant recognition is just
that, recognition but irrelevant.
Bʹs self-relations depend on recognition in general, including recognition from
A among others, and including this particular claim by A among other claims.
Here, a holistic approach is in place. Single judgements are always interpreted
against the background of one’s general sense of self, and sense of how others
view me. Sometimes single comments from others may have very crucial
effects, often they are just drops in the ocean.
The same thing can be said of the question whether it matters to B what others
say of her X-hood, for example, that it does not matter to me what others
think of me as a guitar-player. Again, such mattering comes in degrees, and
even irrelevant recognition is recognition.
What about the conditions that B is aware of A’s claim that “B is X”, and
understands it and further that B accepts it, because he or she agrees with the
judgement? These conditions try to analyze what “successfully” means. It
seems that awareness is a necessary condition for recognition to take place,
but understanding comes in degrees. Further, it seems that something can be
a case of recognition even where the recognizer herself does not agree with
the judgement. Indeed, often the views of competent and relevant judges are
all the more relevant if they differ from my own views.
Three classes of recognition and a plurality of
principles of social justice
It is possible to classify different kinds of recognition at different levels of
abstraction, and with different interests. On different levels of generality,
there are a different number of forms (or types or kinds or sorts or species) of
recognition.
Related to Hegel and Honneth, I have suggested that we can distinguish three
classes of recognition. Differing from Honneth’s historical and social
theoretical interest, I suggested a logical or systematic distinction. In the case
of persons, A can relate to B in a universalistic way as a person, in a
particularistic way as a certain kind of person, and in a singularistic way as a
certain person. The same goes of course for other recognizers than persons,
and a similar threefold distinction can be made for various types of
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identification. It depends on one’s theoretical purposes whether such a tight
threefold distinction is of use.21
This threefold distinction is exemplified, but not exhausted, by three different
principles of distribution relevant to the theme of social justice and social
equality: egalitarian universalism distributing to each equally (independently
of which and what kind of person is in question), meritarian principle of desert
distributing to each according to his or her achievements (independently of
which person is in question) and favouritistic principle of legitimate
“nepotism”, in which someone distributes to those, whom she owes special
responsibility, like her children or other persons to whom she has special
attachment to (independently of what kind of person the person in question is).
Nepotism is criticizable only when it replaces other (e.g. egalitarian or
meritocractic) valid considerations.
Of these, the principle of equal respect is egalitarian at two levels. While all
normative principles are egalitarian at a metalevel so that the principle applies
to all people in the same way, equal respect is egalitarian also at the substantial
level suggesting that the basic rights and basic standing of persons ought to be
distributed in a uniform and difference-blind fashion. There may be other
principles like the principle of desert, which is egalitarian only at the
metalevel, but substantively leads to differential distribution, in accordance to
the different merits of people. As Nancy Fraser (2003) among others has
suggested, the egalitarian principle of equal standing of persons has relevance
in various contexts, including the civil rights, basic moral and political rights
but also in terms of ʺparticipatory parityʺ at workplace, at family and at
society at large. Everyone ought to be entitled to minimum welfare and equal
standing as a participant of the social life, totally irrespective of their merits.
But on top of that, I think Axel Honneth is right to suggest that social esteem,
which is often connected to economic rewards, is dependent on the actual
contributions. So there are different kinds of recognition, leading to
substantively different principles, equal difference-blind respect and
difference-sensitive esteem for example.
The threefold distinction I have suggested is illuminating only in some
contexts and for some purposes. For example, it draws a relevant distinction
in what ʺpolitics of differenceʺ may mean: does it refer particularistically to
qualitative distinctness in terms of relevant features or singularistically to
Note that “recognizer”, like possibly “person”, is a concept which needs to be supplied with
some further concept to answer the question what is the “primary kind” of that agent (human
being, group, state), and which provides the existence- persistence- and identity-conditions of
that agent. (See Baker: Persons and Bodies.)
21
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irreplacable individuals. It also corresponds to three classes of self-relations:
the relation to oneself as a free and equal person among others, as a certain
kind of person, and as this singular individual person. Yet, I do not think this
threefold division is the most interesting level of abstraction in all cases. Most
importantly, I think there is a plurality of values and norms relevant to social
justice and modern good life, and any three basic values or three basic norms
do not encompass the whole spectre. The three classes are indeed classes with
more than one member.
For example, the particularistic principles, which focus on certain kinds of
persons, may include not only the meritarian principle, but also the principle
of need or the principle of free exchange.22 Michael Walzer has convincingly
shown that the last two are valid principles in some spheres of justice: the
resources that health care has at its disposal should be distributed according
to need, whereas the things that are for sale ought to be governed by and
large by the principle of free exchange.23 Walzerʹs point is that there is a
plurality of spheres of justice, each governend by the relevant distributionprinciple. Further, the specification of the meritarian principle can lead to
specification of rival principles, which may be valid in different contexts.
Further, there are different scopes of universalistic principles, depending on
whether we talk about all persons, all human persons, all autonomous human
persons, all legal subjects or all citizens. At each level we can say that
everyone ought to be treated fundamentally as equals.24 But not all persons
have all the rights that autonomous persons have, and whatever legal rights
there are in any system of law, they concern only those who are legal subjects
of that system instead of some other.25
But it may also be that these principles are mixed cases. Honneth takes his third form of
recognition (love or care) and recognition as a needy being, to go together. It seems to me that
needs figure in all forms of recognition, for example, we can look after someoneʹs needs
simply because that person is a person (universalistic concern in saving an unknown person
from drowning), or as a reward for more or less great contributions (a well-known poor poet
getting money for food), or as expressions of special concern (looking after the needs of a
child). There is a universalistic element in that everyone ought to have the right to own
things. There is no meritarian element because it is a different thing to deserve something and
to own it. For the latter, it suffices that one has gained what one owns in free exchange. There
is no injustice if there are two equally deserving persons in other respects, who own different
things. If only one of them, say, made a deal, then only that person has entitlement to the
goods he gained with the deal.
23 As long as VAT-taxation or some such mechanism takes care of the state’s share.
24 I am less sure whether we can legitimately say this about all recognizers - is there a respect
in which human persons and states ought to be treated as equals?
25 Further, it seems that the normative relevance of group-memberships may be based on
special attachments (“this is my defining community, hence I have special responsibilities or
sympathies towards it”), or on its evaluative features (say, a group of Nobel-prize winners).
22
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Even though it may be illuminating in some contexts to focus on three types
of recognition, there seem to be more valid principles relevant to social justice.
Honneth seems to hold there are importantly three principles.26 On the other
hand, Honneth seems to allow that in the context of any particular society,
there may well be a plurality of values, but there are context-transcending
valid principles, which serve as a basis of a context-transcending formal
theory of modern good life. I think there is greater plurality of such contexttranscending values and principles as well.27 Therefore the three classes of
principles of recognition are bound to contain more valid principles than one
each.28 In this paper I cannot develop a theory of social justice any further, I
wish merely to make the point that there may well be an irreducible plurality
of valid principles.
What is good life, especially autonomous good life,
and what kind of preconditions does it have?
Teleological theories of good societies start from assumptions concerning
good life. I would agree with this starting-point as long as we bear in mind
that social justice is not merely a matter of maximizing the sum of good life
with any means possible, but there are moral obligations and rules of fair
distribution, which limit the acceptable ways of pursuing good life.29 I think
both Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor do in fact accept such deontological
side-constraints although these may remain implicit in their theories.
Concerning the notion of good life, Honneth (1992) has stressed that certain
kinds of positive self-relations are necessary for good life and self-realization,
and that recognition is in turn necessary for good life in contributing to these
So it may not always be clear whether in showing special recognition to a certain group we
do this because it is this group, or because it is this kind of group.
26 He has also considered the possibility that the demands of cultural minorities present a
fourth form of recognition (see Honneth 2003, 2004).
27 Thus I am critical of Nancy Fraserʹs (2003) normative monism focusing on the admittedly
important principle of ʺparticipatory parityʺ. I agree with Honneth that Fraserʹs proposal fails
to avoid evaluative commitments. Without evaluative pre-understandings one cannot tell
which kinds of parity matter, or to which direction one should improve things. This makes
Fraserʹs proposal vulnerable to so called ʺleveling downʺ -objection. If some people are blind
and some possess sight, full parity does not prevail. (Or if it does, change the example to
some impairment of parity). So should we make everyone blind in the name of parity?
28 See Laitinen 2003 for a defence of value pluralism.
29 Doing constantly the morally right thing is one ingredient of good life, but one can do the
right thing in any circumstances, and yet some circumstances are better for flourishing than
some others: thus some morally right lives are better in terms of flourishing than some other
morally right lives. It does not follow, but it may be true, that some morally less good lives
are better in terms of flourishing than some morally more ideal lives.
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positive self-relations. These self-relations are first of all basic self-confidence,
which provides the minimum courage to say ʺnoʺ that autonomy requires.
Emotional relationships of loving acceptance and care tend to promote such
self-confidence. Secondly, there is self-respect, the view of oneself as equal
person among others, capable of acting responsibly, autonomously and
rationally. Being respected by others as an autonomous person promotes
oneʹs self-respect. Thirdly, there is self-esteem, positive relationship to oneʹs
particular capacities and achievements, which social esteem in turn tends to
promote.
Nancy Fraser has posed a good question to Honneth, namely whether intact
identity consisting of such positive self-relations, and the corresponding
relations of recognition, are constituents (ingredients) of good life, or
preconditions (prerequisites) of good life. She points out that Honneth has used
them in both roles (2003, 235-6, fn 15). I think that Honneth is right that
recognition is both a constituent and a precondition of good life, but it may be
that its role as a precondition is the more important one for critical social
theory. Why? Because the task of the society is to provide the preconditions of
good life, and it is up to the individual what to make of them.
Our views of the role of recognition among the prerequisites of good life
depend of course on what we think good life is, and under modern
conditions, what we think autonomous good life is. Honneth, too, has in mind
precisely autonomous good life.
It is quite clear that what good life consists in is a matter of dispute. I take the
best view to be a pluralist one claiming first of all that different cultures
provide a plurality of models of life which are mutually incompatible, but
which may each be good versions of human flourishing. Further, there is a
plurality of equally good models of life within the cultures or societies. They
contain many different roles through which one can realize oneʹs capacities.
I take it that the best theories of good life try to capture both objective and
subjective elements. There are some objective needs and objective standards of
worthwhileness, but in addition the subjective feel of life is crucial. Both are
necessary for human flourishing, and both objective and subjective elements
are capable of making life less than good. For example, lack of any
meaningful activities to participate in, or lack of any subjective feelings of
happiness or satisfaction can be unbearable and make life not worth living.
Drawing from Martha Nussbaum, Christine Korsgaard and Joseph Raz whose
theories are in details quite different, something like the following core
conception of human well-being can be found. Good life consists of subjectively
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satisfactory and more or less successful engagement in humanly worthwhile
activities. In other words, good life is active life in actualizing humanly
worthwhile capacities, engaging in humanly worthwhile activities, and in
humanly worthwhile relationships, in a sufficiently successful way, and in a
non-alienated, sufficiently authentic way, that is ʺwholeheartedlyʺ or in a
subjectively satisfactory manner, feeling sufficiently happy.
Because nowadays autonomous freedom is such a crucial value, we can add the
premise of autonomous freedom to that characterization, and ask what is
autonomous good life? Like any good life, it consists of subjectively satisfactory
and successful engagement in humanly worthwhile activities, which are
furthermore autonomously chosen (Raz). Furthermore, as Philip Pettit has
recently stressed, true autonomous freedom in the full sense may demand
that fully autonomous life can only be lived under conditions in which other
individuals and the political institutions recognize and guarantee oneʹs right to
make such autonomous choices.
If that is what autonomous good life consists in, then what kind of
preconditions does it have? Quite readily, we have at our disposal various
ideas of the different preconditions which are stressed differently by different
theories. One way to approach this is to ask what is it that the so-called
theories of positive freedom demand in addition to the negative freedom from
interference? They claim that there are all kinds of preconditions for actually
living an autonomous good life. There are obviously material preconditions as
Marxists have stressed. There are psychological preconditions in terms of the
psychic balance, and in terms of oneʹs economy of desires and emotions and
the cognitive capacities. Further, there are preconditions concerning oneʹs
opportunities in meaningful action. These consist in oneʹs cultural
environment, which ought to provide opportunities to set oneself meaningful
goals or to engage in meaningful activities. In other words, there ought to
exist a civilization or a way of life, which provides roles through which one
can realize oneʹs capacities. These are often stressed in Charles Taylorʹs work.
In addition to these, there are preconditions that Honneth has stressed
concerning oneʹs ʺintersubjective environmentʺ consisting of the attitudes of
the others including respect, esteem and care. Finally, there are preconditions
concerning the institutional settings, especially political institutions and the
norms that govern the use of coercion by state, and which ought to guarantee
oneʹs autonomy. Thus we have at least five kinds of preconditions: material,
psychological, cultural, intersubjective and institutional. Whether one accepts
the positive theories of freedom as theories of freedom or not, these
preconditions of good life or autonomous good life are hard to rebut. The real
controversies are more likely to concern the best interpretations of them, or
the role of state in supporting them.
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To repeat, good autonomous life consists of subjectively rewarding and
objectively successful engagement in objectively worthwhile activities and
relationships, which are autonomously chosen, under institutions
guaranteeing autonomy. And it has five types of preconditions: psychological,
material, cultural, intersubjective and institutional.
Before taking a closer look at these preconditions, it is worth pointing out that
they may well figure also as constituents of good life. Let us see if this is true of
the intersubjective element, of such relations of recognition where the
recognizers are individual persons.30 We have seen that interpersonal
recognition is something where there are two recognizers, who mutually take
each other as persons, and possibly further as certain kind of persons, or as
certain persons, and accept the normative implications of such takings.
Examples of such recognition are respect, esteem and love as discussed by
Honneth.
Arguably, engaging in human relations, which include respect, esteem and
love, are among the objectively worthwhile human activities.31 Thus, leading a
good life partly consists in engaging in recognitive relations. Further, it may be
that the statuses and rights granted in recognition may be partly what actual
autonomy or actual freedom of an individual consists in. That is, one is not
fully free if the state and the people around one do not guarantee that one can
exercise oneʹs autonomy. So both recognizing others and being recognized
oneself can be constitutive aspects of autonomous good life.
Successful engagement in relationships of recognition is a constituent of good
life, but it does not cover the whole of good life. Activities which are not
recognitional, say ones which one does on oneʹs own, may be equally
worthwhile and constitutive of oneʹs good life.
Interpersonal recognition and the subjective aspect
of good life
What is the role and place of recognition among the preconditions of
autonomous good life? First of all, quite simply, intersubjective recognition is
directly one of the five kinds of preconditions of autonomous good life.
Disrespect or hostile or denigrating attitudes of others directly mean that
oneʹs intersubjective environment does not promote good life.
30
31
Note that also the institutional element is partly one of ʺrecognitionʺ.
And so is political participation, which presupposes and implies all kinds of recognition.
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We see why this is so when we consider the relevance recognition has to the
subjective aspect of good life.32 The subjective experiences of misrecognition or
insults affect oneʹs flourishing directly: the bad feelings, unhappiness, misery
or anger caused by insults and misrecognition affect oneʹs flourishing over
and above affecting oneʹs self-respect, self-esteem and self-confidence. One
may have very strong and stable self-relations but still experiences of
misrecognition can make one very unhappy. Such experiences of
misrecognition may further alienate one from oneʹs community or from the
institutions that one lives in, thus affecting oneʹs sense of good life, and thus
good life itself. Human flourishing is not independent from the subjective
views, so such bad experiences, if continuous and significant enough, suffice
to make life less than good.
I think this is a very powerful aspect of an argument against social injustice,
social inequality and social exclusion. It is not only the other objective
preconditions of good life that principles of justice, or equality, or inclusion
try to guarantee. Experiences of misrecognition as such make life worse than it
otherwise would be. It is not only injuries, but also insults that count.
Intersubjective, psychological and institutional
preconditions: Honneth
The recognitional attitudes of others are directly one of the preconditions of
good life, through shaping oneʹs experiences. This is important but not the
whole story. One of Axel Honnethʹs central points has been to point out
systematical linkage between the psychological self-relations, intersubjective
attitudes of interpersonal recognition, and institutional settings such as family,
labour market and the state. So Honneth has shown the structural
interconnection between three types of preconditions of good life, namely
psychological, intersubjective and political.33 One can try to improve them in
one package, because they affect one another.
First of all, intersubjective attitudes of recognition affect self-relations. The
positive self-relations which are a condition of successful autonomous pursuit
There is a possible ʺgapʺ between subjective experience and misrecognition, but experiences
of misrecognition may be directly constitutive of the subjective element of good life.
33 Compare to Christopher Zurnʹs characterization in ʺRecognition, Redistribution, and
Democracy: Dilemmas of Honnethʹs Critical Social Theoryʺ (forthcoming in European Journal
of Philosophy): ʺHonneth ... develops his critical theory through an account of the structural
interconnection between a) the three levels of individual identity development, b) the three
forms of intersubjective recognition required for each level, and c) the forms of social
organization needed as preconditions for the healthy, undistorted self-realization of that
societyʹs members.ʺ In preparing this paper, Zurnʹs manuscript was of great help.
32
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of a good life may be impossible to acquire without recognition. These selfrelations include self-respect, self-esteem and self-confidence. Sufficient selfconfidence, and sufficient self-esteem and sufficient self-respect are needed by
autonomous life. Thus these healthy self-relations can be called psychological
preconditions of good life, and they are a different thing than the subjective
experiences. I mentioned above that subjective experiences affect oneʹs quality
of life over and above the effects on the self-relations, but correspondingly
these self-relations affect oneʹs capabilities over and above their effect on the
subjective feel of life. They form so to speak an objective, real, psychological
condition of good life. The prevailing relations of interpersonal recognition
also make some political institutions more stable and more legitimate than
others, in the sense of the feelings of solidarity that are necessary for
functioning democrary etc.
Secondly, self-relations affect oneʹs relations to others, and the prevailing selfrelations make some political institutions more legitimate and stable than
others. Finally, institutional settings sanction, promote and prevent certain
types of self-relations and intersubjective attitudes. The political institutions
also recognize and are recognized, so recognition takes place not only at the
level of intersubjective preconditions of good life, but also at the level of
political-institutional preconditions of good life.
So the Honnethian triangle of psychological, intersubjective and institutional
considerations forms a quite tight package. It is important to analytically
distinguish them, but it is also important to map the systematic
interconnections. There is no guarantee that the respect or esteem on behalf of
others translates into self-respect or self-esteem. The psychological dynamics
are manifold, and dependent on the personʹs own attitudes, there is no direct
one-to-one determination.
To recap, intersubjective relations of recognition are directly one of the five
preconditions, and indirectly affect at least the other two, namely
psychological resources and political settings. These are the three kinds of
preconditions that Honneth is most directly interested in.
Cultural and material preconditions: Taylor and
Fraser
Charles Taylor in turn has stressed the cultural or civilizational preconditions
of good life.34 These are the preconditions concerning the so called ʺculturalʺ
environment consisting in opportunities to engage in meaningful activities or
34
See eg. Taylor 1985, 1989. I discuss this in Laitinen 2003.
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in other words the existence of a civilization or a way of life which provides
roles through which one can realize oneʹs capacities. I think this claim
captures something important: there are indeed civilizational preconditions,
cultural horizons, which cannot be reduced to relations of interpersonal
recognition, they cover whole frameworks of belief and evaluation. For
example, in Ethics of Authenticity, Taylor distinguishes between the dialogical
or intersubjective prerequisites of good, authentic life, and the horizons of
significance that good life presupposes.
And although identification with some values is sometimes called
ʺrecognitionʺ of such values, it is importantly different from interpersonal
recognition as I pointed out in section one.35 It follows that cultural struggles
concerning definitions of values are not directly struggles for recognition:
values are not the kind of entities that can be recognized, given the strict
definition. Value disagreements are not directly struggles for interpersonal
recognition: two persons A and B may debate about, say, the value of art, the
value of courage or the value of wilderness, without paying any attention to
the relevance of this to their self-esteem. Yet value debates may have two
kinds of indirect implications to interpersonal recognition: when the value of
art or courage is under dispute, artists or courageous people may have at
stake their self-esteem as instantiating the values in question. But also, when
the value of wilderness is disputed, although wilderness is not a potential
recognizee, the debating parties may have at stake their self-esteem as valuers,
as having particular value-orientations. The issue can be at the core of
someoneʹs value-orientation and identity, and therefore oneʹs social esteem
can be indirectly dependent on the cultural acknowledgement of the value in
question.
Now we can add that the Honnethian Triangle of psychological,
intersubjective and institutional dependencies is actually infiltrated with
cultural meanings through and through. And furthermore, we can talk about
the connections between culture and psyche, for example in terms of mastery
of cultural vocabularies, but also in terms of self-interpretations, and between
culture and political institutions, in the sense that institutions embody certain
values.
Finally, we can turn to the material preconditions of a good life. Nancy Fraser
and Brian Barry among others have made the accusation that the theorists of
multiculturalism and recognition tend to overlook material interests, or at
least divert attention away from the material preconditions of good life. If
Clearly the relationship between a value and a person is not that of mutual recognition, it is
something like commitment or orientation or identification with or ʺacknowledgmentʺ.
35
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valid, this criticism is quite strong, as everyone surely agrees that good life
has material preconditions.
Now paradoxically, Fraser makes her critical point against Honneth in terms
of cultural valuations of identity versus material goods. In my view it is rather
Charles Taylor who focuses on the cultural preconditions on good life,
whereas Honnethʹs theory remains quite implicit in this respect. Fraser takes
Honneth to talk about cultural valuation, but it seems to me that Honneth
talks about the triangle of psychological-intersubjective-institutional
preconditions of good life (and Honneth 2003 replies to Fraser that his view is
not merely ʺculturalʺ). It is Charles Taylorʹs theories that are the place to look
at to get the sense in which cultural or civilizational horizons are irreducible
as preconditions of good life. Indeed, Fraser talks about ʺcultureʺ mostly in
the sense directly relevant for recognition and misrecognition, i.e. as
stereotypes and cultural codifications of some people and their features as
higher or lower. Such codifications are indeed ingredients of cultural
horizons, but entire cultural horizons are much wider consisting of beliefsystems and frameworks of evaluations in a broader sense.
If we conceive of recognition not as cultural valuations as such, but as
different kinds of relations to persons that other persons and institutions may
have, what is the relationship of interpersonal recognition to the material
preconditions of good life? I will suppose now that recognition
paradigmatically consists of acts and attitudes (see above), and shall examine
how redistribution is related to such cases of recognition.
There are at least four different possible cases: First, to some extent at least,
the material preconditions can be fulfilled by nature and peopleʹs own action,
and no redistributive action on behalf of the state and others is needed. To that
extent the material preconditions of good life can be in place without any
redistributive and recognitional action on behalf of others.
Second, take a case where other persons or the state respect the basic rights of
an individual, including the right to minimum welfare, and as an expression
of that respect redistribute material goods always when the rights of the
individual demand such redistribution. In this case redistributive acts and
recognitive acts are one and the same thing. One and the same action is both
redistribution and recognition, when the right attitudes are in place.
But thirdly, it seems that redistribution can take place in ways, which do not
count as recognition. There are two kinds of cases: behaviour in which the
agent acts as if he or she really respects, esteems or loves the one receiving the
material goods, but in fact the motives of the agent are purely egoistic. Or, if
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the distribution is done by an economic system which literally has no motives
at all. In these cases there may be redistribution of material goods without
recognition (if recognition is action with the correct attitudes). And in many
cases, what the recipient really wants are just the material goods, and the
recipient need not care whether these acts are genuine cases of recognition. In
these cases, redistribution without recognition is conceptually possible and
sufficient for the recipients.36 Yet, this is based on a normative demand: the
recipient may think he or she is entitled to these material goods, say, because
of the norm that everyoneʹs basic needs ought to be met. The recipient surely
thinks that everyone ought to acknowledge that norm, but he or she may
think that what makes the real difference is that others act in accordance with
that valid norm, whether or not they are motivated by the validity of that
norm. If the others act for egoistic motivations in accordance with that norm,
and supply the goods that the recipient is entitled to, the recipient may be
fully satisfied. This is so, if the recipient demands merely that others act in
accordance with valid norms of redistribution. These are cases of
redistribution without genuine recognition.37
Fourthly, there may be patterns of redistribution which are stigmatizing etc,
and these are cases in which both recognition and misrecognition are present:
genuine recognition of the person takes place, but it takes place in such a
disrespectful way, that it constitutes misrecognition.
So the relationship between the material preconditions of good life and
recognition are manifold: sometimes material preconditions are to some
extent in place without redistribution. And when redistribution takes place, it
may be a case of recognition, or partial misrecognition, or not a case of
recognition at all.
Assuming the view of recognition, which takes both action and attitudes into
account, lead to a divided judgement between Fraser and Honneth in their
debate about recognition and redistribution. Honneth seems to be right in that
redistribution and recognition may be fulfilled by one and the same act. Yet
Fraser seems to be right in that these are still two analytically distinct
perspectives on the same action. Furthermore, the fact that recognition and
redistribution may come apart not only analytically but also in some real
Note that the gratitude of the recipient may be smaller or non-existent in cases where
redistribution is not based on real recognition, but redistribution in accordance to valid norms
but for ultimately egoistic motives. Heikki Ikäheimo has made this point in an article in
Finnish.
37 Further, even if the agent acknowledges the norm, it is not the same as that he or she directly
recognizes the recipient. But as acknowledgement or norms and interpersonal recognition are
intertwined, the case is one of indirect recognition. See above.
36
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Laitinen – Social Equality, Recognition and Preconditions of Good Life
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cases, supports the view that individual cases of recognition and
redistribution need not always be one and the same thing.38
Conclusion
In this article I tried first to analyze what recognition is. And what is
emerging in the second section of this article is a somewhat complex and
hopefully rich picture of interpersonal and institutional recognition as a
precondition of autonomous good life.
Positive recognition enables good life, whereas misrecognition and insults can
make life worse. The statuses guaranteed by the state directly constitute my
autonomy. Further, engaging in relations of recognition is a constituent of
good life, and enriches life on its own.
But interpersonal and institutional forms of recognition also affect the
psychological preconditions of good life, and are in a complex relationship
with the cultural and material preconditions. Through affecting these other
objective preconditions of good life, insufficient recognition may lead
indirectly to injuries. Thus, recognition is a precondition and a constituent of
life on both the subjective and objective aspects, misrecognition can cause
both injuries and insults, and they both can make oneʹs life worse.
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