Freedom's Right By Axel Honneth Summary

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Recommended: A brief essay on friendship

As a modern day philosopher, Axel Honneth, in his book, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, addresses the normative reconstruction, or the empirical observation and development of the norms already existent in social history, of the three spheres of personal relationships, which he considers to be friendships, intimate relationships and families. I will look at his analysis of friendships through history. Axel Honneth is trying to argue that friendship has become a sphere of social freedom (individuals require others to fulfill the aims of their activities (125)), a social institution (the behavioral norms, repetitive activities, and expectations make the institution (45)), and a social relation over time and gives reason to why friendship is valuable in addition to the possible controversy friendships encounter such as capitalism. I will explain this reasoning later in the paper. Honneth initiates the chapter with describing the history of friendship and how it has changed over time. …show more content…

Secondly, I believe more emphasis should have been placed on the biggest impact of the need to reconstruct male/female friendships which was World War II and the switch in traditional roles. Thirdly, I will explain the "normative rules" of friendship and what it means to be a good friend. Fourth, I will argue that Honneth’s normative reconstruction of a group of “friends,” has actually remained consistent through history into modern day. Fifth, I will argue why friendship is valuable according to the four reasons Honneth gives. Finally, I will address how friendship can have certain "misdevelopments," like capitalism, according to Honneth and my personal opinion of his

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