Justification and Critique

Justification and Critique
Author: Rainer Forst
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 074565228X

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with regard to their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones. Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critique of a number of contemporary approaches in political philosophy and critical theory. Finally, he also addresses the question of the utopian horizon of social criticism.

The Right to Justification

The Right to Justification
Author: Rainer Forst
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0231147082

Contemporary philosophical pluralism recognizes the inevitability and legitimacy of multiple ethical perspectives and values, making it difficult to isolate the higher-order principles on which to base a theory of justice. Rising up to meet this challenge, Rainer Forst, a leading member of the Frankfurt School's newest generation of philosophers, conceives of an "autonomous" construction of justice founded on what he calls the basic moral right to justification. Forst begins by identifying this right from the perspective of moral philosophy. Then, through an innovative, detailed critical analysis, he ties together the central components of social and political justice--freedom, democracy, equality, and toleration--and joins them to the right to justification. The resulting theory treats "justificatory power" as the central question of justice, and by adopting this approach, Forst argues, we can discursively work out, or "construct," principles of justice, especially with respect to transnational justice and human rights issues. As he builds his theory, Forst engages with the work of Anglo-American philosophers such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen, and critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth. Straddling multiple subjects, from politics and law to social protest and philosophical conceptions of practical reason, Forst brilliantly gathers contesting claims around a single, elastic theory of justice.

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations
Author: Charlotte Cloutier
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2017-05-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1787143791

This volume explores how mobilizing Boltanski and Thévenot’s economies of worth framework, and its associated concepts of justification, evaluation and critique, help address questions regarding the premises and dynamics of coordinated action, both within and across organizations, and by so doing help advance our understanding.

Contexts of Justice

Contexts of Justice
Author: Rainer Forst
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2002-02-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0520232259

This text offers an intervention into the debate between communitarianism and liberalism. It argues for a theory of "contexts of justice" that leads beyond the confines of the debate as it has been understood and posits the possibility of a new conception of social and political justice.

The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas

The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas
Author: Uwe Steinhoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2009-06-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199547807

A comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the 70s. The study clearly and precisely depicts his long chain of arguments leading from analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state."

Justification and Emancipation

Justification and Emancipation
Author: Amy Allen
Publisher: Penn State Series in Critical Theory
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Critical theory
ISBN: 9780271084787

A collection of essays on the work of German political theorist Rainer Forst, covering subjects such as justice, toleration, and the critique of power from within a normative theory of justice and law.

Normativity and Power

Normativity and Power
Author: Rainer Forst
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2017-10-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192519697

Humans are justificatory beingsthey offer, demand, and require justifications. The rules and institutions they follow rest on justification narratives that have evolved over time and, taken together, constitute a dynamic and tension-laden normative order. In this collection of essays, the first translation into English of the ground-breaking Normativität und Macht (Suhrkamp 2015), Rainer Forst presents a new approach to critical theory. Each essay reflects on the basic principles that guide our normative thinking. Forst's argument goes beyond 'ideal' and 'realist' theories and shows how closely the concepts of normativity and power are interrelated, and how power rests on the capacity to influence, determine, and possibly restrict the space of justifications for others. By combining insights from the disciplines of philosophy, history, and the social sciences, Forst re-evaluates theories of justice, as well as of power, and provides the tools for a critical theory of relations of justification.

On Justification

On Justification
Author: Luc Boltanski
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400827140

A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however, often misread situations, and many disagreements can be explained by people appealing, knowingly and unknowingly, to different principles. On Justification is the first English translation of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot's ambitious theoretical examination of these phenomena, a book that has already had a huge impact on French sociology and is likely to have a similar influence in the English-speaking world. In this foundational work of post-Bourdieu sociology, the authors examine a wide range of situations where people justify their actions. The authors argue that justifications fall into six main logics exemplified by six authors: civic (Rousseau), market (Adam Smith), industrial (Saint-Simon), domestic (Bossuet), inspiration (Augustine), and fame (Hobbes). The authors show how these justifications conflict, as people compete to legitimize their views of a situation. On Justification is likely to spark important debates across the social sciences.

Without Justification

Without Justification
Author: Jonathan Sutton
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2007-01-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262264803

In the contentious debate among contemporary epistemologists and philosophers regarding justification, there is one consensus: justification is distinct from knowledge; there are justified beliefs that do not amount to knowledge, even if all instances of knowledge are instances of justified belief. In Without Justification, Jonathan Sutton forcefully opposes this claim. He proposes instead that justified belief simply is knowledge—not because there is more knowledge than has been supposed, but because there are fewer justified beliefs. There are, he argues, no false justified beliefs. Sutton suggests that the distinction between justified belief and knowledge is drawn only in contemporary epistemology, and suggests furter that classic philosophers of both ancient and modern times would not have questioned the idea that justification is identical to knowledge. Sutton argues both that we do not (perhaps even cannot) have a serviceable notion of justification that is distinct from knowledge and that we do not need one. We can get by better in epistemology, he writes, without it. Sutton explores the topics of testimony and evidence, and proposes an account of these two key epistemological topics that relies on the notion of knowledge alone. He also addresses inference (both deductive and inductive), internalism versus externalism in epistemology, functionalism, the paradox of the preface, and the lottery paradox. Sutton argues that all of us—philosopher and nonphilosopher alike—should stick to what we know; we should believe something only if we know it to be so. Further, we should not believe what someone tells us unless we know that he knows what he is talking about. These views are radical, he argues, only in the context of contemporary epistemology's ill-founded distinction between knowledge and justification.