Redistribution and recognition from the point of view of real equality: Anderson and Honneth through the Lens of Babeuf
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https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2318-9800.v25i3p159-184Keywords:
Honneth, Anderson, Babeuf, Redistribution, Recognition, Real equalityAbstract
In this paper, my aim is to tackle the issues related to redistribution through a critical take on the distributive paradigm. I will draw on the writings of two of the most important critics of the distributive paradigm in contemporary political philosophy, Elizabeth Anderson and Axel Honneth, whose arguments overlap in many ways. Anderson’s conception of relational, or democratic equality shares a number of key conceptual elements with Honneth’s theory of recognition and social freedom. The two authors provide eminent, converging reference points to critically elucidate issues of redistribution in relation to issues of recognition. In sections 1 and 2, I present the two authors from a triple point of view: how their respective theories of recognition overlap and depart from each other; what the implications are for issues of redistribution; and what their conceptions of “real equality” amount to. In section 3, I consider the two authors critically, from the point of view of “real equality”, by drawing on the very traditions they refer to in order to mount their respective claims. At this point, I contest Anderson’s reading of Babeuf and I use him as a useful foil to raise several critical questions about hers and Honneth’s versions of egalitarianism.
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