Situations of justice, contextualizing the self: Rainer Forst and Seyla Benhabib in debate

• Grant number: 14/13155-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: October 01, 2014
• End date: March 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Ethics
• Principal Investigator: Yara Adario Frateschi
• Grantee: Ana Cláudia Lopes Silveira
• Supervisor: Rainer Forst
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/15036-0 - From Discourse to Moral Conversations: A reformulation of Discourse Ethics according to Seyla Benhabib, BP.MS

Abstract

The defense of a moral theory at the same time universalist and context sensitive is one of the most important themes concerning the new generation of critical theory. Seyla Benhabib and Rainer Forst are the main exponents of this movement. Benhabib departs from Habermasian discourse ethics in order to reformulate it in light of the objections proceeded by communitarian, post-modernist and, most notably, feminist thought; Forst departs from an eminent debate with the tradition of political liberalism and with Axel Honneth's recognition theory. Both of them defended original projects, respectively "interactive universalism" and "contextualist universalism". If both share their initial motivations, they also share a set of problems concerning the most recent debate regarding cosmopolitan rights and transnational justice. However, despite the similarities in their motivations and problems, their conceptual constellations are quite different, resulting in divergent models and challenges. This debate is of key importance to our master's research, because Seyla Benhabib's work have been widely debated with philosophical scrutiny in Germany. One prominent exponent of the debate is Rainer Forst, particularly because his own theory in many aspects contests Benhabib's ideas. The aim of this internship is, therefore, to contrast the developments of our master's research with the current debates in Germany regarding the rehabilitation of universalism in contemporary philosophy, specially by Professor. This stay intends to strength our master's research by confronting it with other extremely relevant project concerning the same set of problems of our inquiry. (AU)