© rowmnn (CHAPTER 12 Freedom, Solidarity, and Democracy An Interview with Axel Honneth Morten Raffasoe-Moller ‘The point of departure of this interview is Axel Honneth’s latest namely Das Recht der Freheit This book is an ambitious at anew theory of justice on the basis of a whole new interpre Infastractar of idividua redo (or what Honneth calls Soca freedom However the interview also traces the development of themes and conceptry, Honneth’s oewore since The Struggle for Recognition from igga, The interview is divided into three main sections. In the fist section Honneth defends the fundamental idea that individual freedom has become the criterion for socal justice and legitimacy in all central modem practices and institutions. The second section is concerned with Honneth's delineation of three spheres of social freedom, that is, personal relationships, market soc. ety, and the self-determining democratic public. The last section deals with Honneth’s hopes and concems forthe future of democracy and solidarity magnum opus, tempt to establish tation of the social 1 Freedom as Normative Foundation of Modern Society 21 Competing Models of Society MRM: In Das Recht der Freiheit, which ‘was published in German in 20n, ‘You attempt to legitimise and criticise the central institutions of our society taking-up from the outset the concept of individual freedom, This monisti¢ ‘approach could give rise to several concerns, some of which I would like to be the theme in the ist part of our conversation. Another set of questions concerns how the different treatises in your oewore that thematise freedom and recognition fit together—if, indeed, they do fit together at all. Well, for er jr Sondicted in Frankfurt in January and November sci. Additionally & 1 hel Hoe YP ts were cused by telephone in Mayan Te Kit der Preihet: Grundriciner demokratschen Sitichet, Beth massa 20 or the Engh vernon se: hel Homes Pes ‘Right: The Socal ‘eendationsof Democrat Le, Cambie Polity Pres, sy FREEDOM, SOLIDARITY, AND DeMoceAcy 261 start, the fist worry would ber modern {in order to reconstruct a much more complex picture of the norms of mederg society. Att: Difficult question... Maybe itis best if go through the alternatives one at atime? As a matter of fact, the question of whether itis possible to interpret the modern world from one value, or from values at al, as been acore puzzle for generations of philosophers and social scientists. Typically, one must say that the answer has been monistic. Hegel, Durkheim, Parsons, and I would add, Habermas all interpret modernity, maybe not from this value, for they do not all ascribe to the concept of ‘value; but they interpret it from the idea of indi- vidual freedom, Most clearly, of course, Hegel says that it i the fundamental principle of modernity. Fist of al, simply follow this interpretation. However, attempt to substantiate the claim more strongly in that I try to show how ‘the essential institutions of our society can only be understood in their con- stitutive rules through the idea of freedom. There are hardly any institutions of significance in our society, in which the constitutive rules cannot in some ‘way be interpreted as freedom promoting or freedom realising. Thus, there is a strong case for assigning freedom this central role. Concerning the idea of Justice: I dont consider justice to be a value that is pursued for its own sake. Rather, justice can only be understood through its connection with another ‘value, it cannot be a superior value of a society I think that all societies oper- ate under the idea of justice. There is hardly any society that does not o under the emando establish just onde anda demand that must cae aetna despite ce! societies of antiquity of the middle ages, yes, also the socalled archi ties, existed and were subject would claim, also holds rega 1 do not think that justice or societies, because, they are— and principles of any society. how am 1 t0RAFENSOE-MoLtey 262 sana .t0 diferente modem societies 99 9 speak, WE MUS invoke freedom... saut...yes,one must introduce another value! Jk, the enormous downside that one can. “ast The cynical postion has I hin aaa reconstruct the meaning of our practices hermeneutically. Because see veuning of our practices is simply the realisation of our freedom, jy pe make any sense, itis simply absurd to claim that the meaning of our cosal practices can be explained through the perspective of power. If one puts oneself inthe postion ofthe actors populating our social practices and eit understanding of our institutions, itis obvious that they are not primar. iy motivated, nor legtimised by power. Rather, if one understands power as influence o the ability to limit the actions of others, I would insist, that this is based on the internal interpretations of the actors freedom [Sinnverstehen], ‘and can only be a secondary phenomenon. MRM:OK, ‘Avi: The challenge of pluralism, Le, of Charles Taylor, is of course more dif- ficult. Here, I would claim that all the other values, the importance of which 1 definitely would not dispute, in the last instance, owe their meaning to how they relate to the concept of freedom. This definitely deserves a longer debate. Yes think the other values we celebrate are either articulations of sments that contribute to freedom. That is, we understand them to freedom. Take for instance the idea of a cultural community as a value—this is possibly Taylor's position. I can only understand the value of this cultural community through the relation it has to freedom [die riick. beziehung auf Freihet). This is because we ae free in a specific way in cultural ‘communities, because we may understand ourselves as interacting freely in a certain sense. This is why we value cultural communities, which thus implies ‘that: Cultural community isa contributive value to the idea of freedom. MRM: OX, that makes a ot of sense and your answer makes an ex ccellent bridge to another set of issues. These would be: Is freedom a sufficiently clear con- cept and is eee a of freedom sufficiently clear to provide a normative basis of our society? Just to give an exampl of Das Recht der Freiheit you talk of individual sunony wn Ea eared also speak of ‘social freedom, that is, of a very specific form of freedom a5 @ <== poo OUTOARIT AND DENDERACy yasis Furthermore, one: could thus cite the idea of bese foundation of your critical theory of india selfrealisation, i qgraton as Ye another example of feedom aa sy i The Sage or Pel institaons.-- formative basis for our i: Yes, in that respect, I develop my position pluralistically in a first step is to investigate our conceptual sory marae ae * 1 ing the diferent meanings of individual feedom nthe modem worl {furthermore try £0 open up a spectrum spanning negative freedom ee found in Hobbes, over reflexive feedom ai is ariclated in Kant and 25 Concept of self-realisation in Herder, concluding with the concept of soil freedom. All are structurally different features (Gestalten}, that i, diferent shapes of individual freedom, and they constitute an ireducile plurality of freedom, thus becoming a condition of modemiy Indeed, this ‘cannot be dis- solved:all these freedoms obviously hae a value in themselves and participate nthe meta-value of individual freedom. Yes, they are expressions ofthis valve Indeed, the perhaps radical and risky hypothesis is that all these different man- ifestations [Gestalten] of individual freedom have been realised institutionally, ie, have gotten a foot hold in modem institutions. Of course a bit sky t0 claim that... sana: Yes, but interesting... nt: Wel, anyway, that isthe claim. That means that negative freedom is anno its own [zu ihrem Rehtgekomrer] inthe instiation of lea igh Ljormalen Recht). Reflexive freedom as come nto its ownsn the tte of Toray, that ie clr instiution, and the social freedoms Nove acquired thet ghts in several insiutions foremost inthe tree hat} avn iden- tify as: personal relationships the market and democis ‘will formation. However there is much in that that one could Ftis®>-~ that the advantage inderstand freedom Je one could sy rit be my interest. Maybe one x wouldbe that one could se and mat: That woul of such a pluralistic id tensions; for instance, aac concep with neal ID or altrmsof cial ont nena freedom etc., And that seems me to the response to the pluralist really. ‘ant Exactly, exactly ++i 264 FAPPNSOE-MoLing sunut Yes so in tis case one would counter Tylor oF Pethaps Walzer by gy mamey wel bt you arent suicielyestemati in YOU reconstney " [ofthe modem value system]: sana ox, a third worry would concer the generality and perhaps even aie aie of your concept feedom Your socially embodied [posivrren epeof coil feedom woud be controversial to many thnk Thislin gt ree the core isue here, ut Your primary inspiration, Hegel is ‘nodem freedom as something that grows out of the secular, fon and as anarticalation of world sprit. This sprobaby tion of Christian 1no option for you, xt: (laughing) No, 1 willspare you the worldspiit-Thatisareally dificult ques. tion, Essentially, thsi the question of whether I have anything meaningful i say about why the value that I take tobe constitutive of modernity, namely individual freedom, is superior to prior values. Not only how we may under stand the development of this value—that is part of the question—but also ‘whether we may understand tis process asan actual progress. And of course donot claim to have done ths, hence provide a genealogy of the development of this value, There are, I think, probably very different processes that contrib- ute tothe formation of the different concepts of individual freedom, thus the singular facts of individual freedom. The three concepts [negative reflexive, and social freedom) have, I think, each their own history: One that reaches far ‘back and another that is relatively recent. Negative freedom is, I think, quite ‘new, while social freedom is much older. The history of reflexive freedom back to Aristotle that i, they all have different histories and varying tempo ties. The crucial questions: Can you say something meaningful about why value should be superior to other values, so that it can provide a solid under pinning of a normative analysis. And the argument, which I haven't worked ‘out properly, but which seems reasonable [sinnvoll] to me—and that 1 also found yesterday in Durkheim's book on education—is that the conditions of ‘our normative craving for justification is ultimately articulated in the value of freedom. If we understand all societies as internally, legitimising, social orders [sich legitimierender sorialer Ordnungen|, this means that societies are dependent on (hingewiesen auf} legitimisation, because man is a norma tively questioning being, ajustification-craving being, One could then say that all social orders are justifcatory orders—as Boltanski puts it—and thatthe ‘medium of justification i itself articulated in the idea of freedom, that is tification demands unforced, individual insight, and “In this case one could say that this value is Bond articulation: In SS Superior to all others, because the substance Of pnasD0M, SOLIDARITY, AND DEMOCRACY sation isarticulated in this vale... bsteinhohlungsprozess] And nse Yes from substance to subject, ight,.2 ants Yes, exactly. For Hegel, freedom is, of course, the institutional dhe principle of spirit, that s freedom is spr that comes inten Te fone would say thatthe substance—the social order that justifies itself—here getsto [understand articulate] the ies, the vale This idea needs mach more evelopment than I have done. In fact, while Ihave only done ths over one page of the book I would conceive ofthe justification along thaelines jenat: And thus the theoretical/conceptual and political strugles over the rormative foundations of society would then be conceived as strugles over the meaning of freedom... ‘an: Exactly, The whole of history has, since the establishment ofthis value, and especially since the insttutionaisation of the diferent facets of freedom in our aifferent institutions, been the history of struggles of interpretations, done could say. Struggles between differen parties over: how are we tunder- stand freedom appropriately? nat: ox. The secon between your earlier works an pretation of cet concerts oto re Pe question concerning ths but initially itsmaybe mi you ne plainly, whether you. inthe proces of wring Ds rf cea opr in yur undETana e rom were a compared to 8; Te Sage or Ren ad Indeterminacy, ox 8 © ld even mention Redistribui you consciously change something ink differently subjects or was it inuity and Change in the Concept of Preedom on a ain topic conces contin and dacontily 1 Das Rect der Freieitin regard t0 your ster i freedom. Ihave some SPE propriate toask der Fete mand free= ‘when approaching the rather a continuous process? ve huge differences between The et bu the rou! Ps otc as cone con aperisi stood amendments.