Questioning the Moral Justification of Political Violence: Recognition Conflicts, Identities and Emancipation

Abstract

Basing its understanding on the two uses of the notion of violence in Honneth's theory of recognition, this paper aims at developing a frame work for the analysis of the thesis of the moral justification of political violence, whenever forms of political violence can be defined as legitimate struggles of recognition. Its contention is that the requalification of some forms of collective violence as recognition conflicts makes it possible to establish a hierarchy of justification for forms of violence which cannot be constructed through a priori criteria, but should rather be the result of a descriptive social philosophy enquiry.

Keywords:

• Axel Honneth
• conflicts of recognition
• epistemology of social science
• Frantz Fanon
• political violence
• social philosophy