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Freedom and friendship in Axel Honneth’s freedom’s right

Muders Sebastian (Universität Zürich, Philosophisches Seminar, Arbeits- und Forschungsstelle für Ethik, Zürich, Switzerland)
Schwind Philipp (Universität Zürich, Philosophisches Seminar, Arbeits- und Forschungsstelle für Ethik, Zürich, Switzerland)

In Axel Honneth’s Freedom’s Right (FR) personal relations, among which Honneth includes not only family and partner relationships but friendship as well, enable the realization of one ‘specific form of freedom, which is difficult to specify’ (FR 233). This assertion constitutes one of the main thesis of Freedom’s Right. Accordingly, ‘freedom in the sense of individual autonomy’ should, among countless different ‘conceptions of freedom’ be understood as the only one that has the power to shape modern society, while all other values effective within modernity should be understood as ‘aspects of the constitutive idea of individual autonomy’ (FR 35). In this paper we argue that Honneth’s discussion of the value of friendship does not accomplish its aim for three reasons: first, Honneth is compelled by his argument to postulate one radical cleavage internal to the concept of friendship, by way of an exaggerated contrast between ancient and modern forms of friendship. Second, in his discussion Honneth marginalizes other existing axiologies of friendship, which attribute some other important instrumental, constitutive and final values to this term. Third, even a weaker thesis, one that treats the value of friendship as the precondition of individual freedom as a primus inter pares, seems to lose sight of the central importance that friendship has for us.” Honneth’s key thesis about the unique value of friendship in our society is thereby challenged.

Keywords: Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right, freedom, friendship, Aristotle, value theory, final values, constitutive values, instrumental values, relationships