Publication details

Normativity and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Monograph

Author(s): Forst, Rainer
Year of publication: 2017

Abstract: Humans are justificatory beings, they offer, demand, and require justifications. The rules and institutions they follow rest on justification narratives that have evolved over time and, taken together, constitute a dynamic and tension-laden normative order. In this collection of essays, the first translation into English of the ground-breaking Normativität und Macht (Suhrkamp 2015), Rainer Forst presents a new approach to critical theory. Each essay reflects on the basic principles that guide our normative thinking. Forst's argument goes beyond 'ideal' and 'realist' theories and shows how closely the concepts of normativity and power are interrelated, and how power rests on the capacity to influence, determine, and possibly restrict the space of justifications for others. By combining insights from the disciplines of philosophy, history, and the social sciences, Forst re-evaluates theories of justice, as well as of power, and provides the tools for a critical theory of relations of justification.

Keywords: justice, Normativity, power

Research area: Research Area 1: The Normativity of Normative Orders: Origins, Vanishing Points, Performativitiy
Research project: Power, Rule and Violence in Orders of Justification
Subject(s): political science, philosophy

Further information: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/normativity-and-power-9780198798873?q=Forst&lang=en&cc=de#