Chapter 5 - Recognition and Positive Freedom

Summary

Conceptions of negative liberty invariably refer to the removal of objective hindrances to physical action. Conceptions of positive liberty, by contrast, refer to the provision of goods that facilitate forms of empowerment and capacitation. This chapter argues that some of the goods necessary for empowerment and capacitation are subjective, or psychological, most (if not all) of which depends, in one form or another, on what philosophers since Hegel has dubbed "recognition." This chapter has three parts. Drawing from a sample of recognition theorists (Taylor, Honneth, Habermas, and Pippin), Part One defends the salience of recognition for empowerment, capacitation, and agency. Part two then describes forms of psycho-social pathology (damaged agency) that misrecognition of the absence of recognition typically causes. Part three concludes by defending the psychological and ontological validity of recognition as a coherent dimension of social freedom against some frequently raised objections.