On Axel Honneth's Ethics Of Recognition

Axel Honneth attempts to connect experience with norm in order to overcome the transcedence of communicative action. He aims to make a critical theory of society progressed by resorting to the latest development of recognition theory and digging deeply the moral implications of the concept of recognition. Therefore, he constructs the system of ethics of recognition by drawing on the early 'Jena Period' work of Hegel, the social psychology of George Herbert Mead.First, Honneth reflects on Aristotle and Kant's ethics, Habermas's discourse ethics, and postmodern ethics, discusses the necessity and availability of constructing the ethics of recognition, and interprets the implications of the ethics of recognition which is including three forms.Second, in the sphere of social philosophy, Honneth reflects on the discipline's history, locates it as social pathology and emphases to specify the situation of social pathologies from the perspective of ethics. He analyses the moral motivation of social conflicts and assumes 'formal conception of ethical life' as norm which leads us to connect the right of individual with the good of communities. So, the ethics of recognition can be seen as a social ethics which clarifies social misdevelopment, especially social conflicts.The third, in the sphere of political philosophy, Honneth and Nancy Fraser debates on the justice of redistribution and recognition. Fraser insists on the perspective of dualism, but Honneth insists on plural justice based on three forms of recognition because he thinks that the problem of redistribution belongs to recognition. What's more, Honneth discusses the moral implications of work from the perspective of recognition. He thinks the reasons that the discontent of workers is not caused by maldistribution, but by disrespect that self-worth and contribution of workers has not got social esteem. Honneth thinks that the task of political philosophy is to build the good social order which is bases on the recognition order. Therefore, in the sphere of political philosophy, the ethics of recognition as a form of the social ethics offers the support to establish a just social order.So, Honneth interprets the concept of recognition from the perspective of ethics, constructs the moral point view of recognition based on love, law rights and solidarity, and assumes the theory of recognition as a social ethics and a political ethics, which is advantage to develop the research of the theory of recognition, a critical theory of society, and analyses of paradoxes of capitalist society. However, there are some disadvantages in the theory of recognition, for examples, on the one hand, it resorts to social moral psychology, which offers experience to critical theory of society, but thick experience makes the power of critique blunted. On another hand, he assumes a formal conception of ethical life, but it makes the normative power weakened. At last but not least, although Honneth take social and political ethics into account, the thick ethics hardly covers the importance of social and political dimensions in practices.In all, Honneth's ethics of recognition begins with the moral philosophy, and extends to social and political philosophy in order to diagnosis social pathologies and construct a just social order. This attempt what he made exists some flaws, but there has no doubt that it has positive significances in the development of theory and practices.