Professorship of the Cluster of Excellence – International Political Theory

Prof. Dr. Stefan Gosepath

The main activity of the cluster professorship was the implementation of the research project “Normativity in a non-ideal world“, to which each of the individual sub-projects referred from a different perspective.

i. The first and most extensive focus was on the formulation of foundations for global or transnational norms of justice that can orient and guide our dealings with the existing non-ideal circumstances. These norms are based, first, on a doctrine of human rights as minimum conditions for the legitimacy of social organizations; second, on a conception of transnational political order; third, on a conception of transnational distributive justice; and fourth, on a conception of global responsibility.

ii. A second focus was on fundamental methodological questions (How can normative theory relate to politics and social orders in a meaningful way? How can normative theories be applied to non-ideal circumstances, especially in the global context?)

iii. The analysis of normativity in general forms a third focus. The focus here is on two questions: Firstly, what is the peculiar obligatory character of moral and political norms and what is it based on? Secondly, what is the unity, if any, of the phenomena referred to as “normativity” in the theoretical and practical realm?

ad i) As part of the first focus, an introduction to and compilation of some key texts on the debate on global justice was produced (Broszies) (published as: Christoph Broszies and Henning Hahn (eds.): Global Justice. Key texts on the debate between particularism and cosmopolitanism Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010), elaborated a minimal conception of the responsibility of the better-off towards people in extreme poverty (Beck) and provided constructive suggestions on how we should think about global duties to help and responsibility (Gosepath). The project included preliminary studies for a systematic response to the question of whether liberal-egalitarian theories of justice can be extended to the global context and, if so, how they can be applied to this context (Gosepath). In addition to the defense of human rights as a minimal but global standard of legitimacy (Gosepath), the advantages and disadvantages of relational and non-relational approaches were also discussed using the example of so-called “failed states” (Jugov).

ad ii) As part of the second focus, preliminary studies on a comprehensive reconstruction and defense of constructivism as a method of justice theory for the global level (Broszies) were developed, a justificatory pluralist perspective on world poverty responsibility was defended (Beck) and elements of a critique of pursuing political philosophy as an ideal/non-ideal theory of justice were elaborated (Schaub).

ad iii) As part of the third focus of the project, preliminary work was carried out on a study on the connection between the genesis and validity of norms, as well as on explaining the relevance of this insight for a justification of the ideal of democratic self-determination (Celikates) and explanations of the origin of normativity (Gosepath).

In addition, the work of the members of the cluster professorship has led to the following individual results:

Stefan Gosepath

ad i) In individual essays on responsibility, human rights and global justice, Gosepath has further developed a practice-independent, moral-universalist approach that also critically examines and distances itself from the practice-dependent approach of non-control that is widespread in Frankfurt.

ad ii) The results of the work in this area can be found in the publication: Robin Celikates & Stefan Gosepath: Einführung in die politische Philosophie, Stuttgart: Reclam, 2013.
Political philosophy as a branch of practical philosophy deals with two types of questions: firstly, questions that have arisen since people began to regard their collective orders not as an unchangeable part of the natural or divine order, but as potentially changeable through their actions and therefore accessible to both criticism and justification; and secondly, questions that arise from the concrete political and social challenges of the present. Celikates and Gosepath’s book aims to introduce philosophical reflection on both types of questions and to show that they are not unrelated to each other, but rather refer to each other. Although the authors also refer to numerous historically influential classics of political philosophy in this introduction, their presentation is not oriented towards the history of ideas, but rather systematically: i.e. oriented towards basic problems, basic concepts and important systematic positions as well as current challenges. As part of this systematic discussion, the central paradigms and their most important representatives from the past and present of political philosophy are also dealt with. In doing so, they do not want to sweep the internal plurality of political philosophy under the carpet, but rather emphasize it – not least because the two authors represent quite different methodological and substantive positions, they hope to have made a virtue out of necessity in this respect.
Table of contents: Preface; 1. what is political philosophy? 1.1. What is politics? 1.2. What is a philosophical reflection on politics and what does it achieve? 2 The state of nature and the anarchist challenge – on the justification of political rule, 2.1 The basic problem, 2.2 The idea of the social contract, 2.3 What is the purpose of the state? 3. critique of liberalism – alternative problem descriptions, 3.1. economic relations – Marxism, 3.2. community – communitarianism, 3.3. gender relations – feminism, 3.4. subject constitution – post-structuralism 4. contested concepts and practical challenges, 4.1. Justice: criteria, theories, practical challenges, 4.2. political freedom and its conditions, 4.3. democracy: models, justifications and practical challenges, 4.4. neutrality, tolerance and the challenge of multiculturalism, 5. bibliography, 6. tasks, 7. index.

ad iii) Gosepath has continued to devote himself to the elaboration of a Wittgensteinian-Hegelian-inspired theory of reasons and an “empraxic” understanding of normativity. In addition to the essay “Zum Ursprung der Normativität” in: Rainer Forst, Martin Hartmann, Rahel Jaeggi, Martin Saar (eds.), Social philosophy and criticism. Axel Honneth on his 60th birthday , Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 2009, pp. 250-268, he gave a lecture “Die soziale Natur der Normativität” in the cluster lecture series Normativität-Frankfurter Perspektiven, published as: “Die soziale Natur der Normativität”, in: Juliane Rebentisch, Francesca Raimondi, Thomas Khurana, Dirk Setton and Dirk Quadflieg (eds.), Negativität, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2018, 247-260.

Robin Celikates

(since September 1, 2010 Associate Prof. at the University of Amsterdam)
Research project: Political freedom, democratic participation and civil disobedience: republican perspectives
As part of the professorship’s research project on the problem of normativity in a non-ideal world, and in particular the third focus, Celikates’ project dealt with the connection between genesis and validity, as asserted, among other things, in the ideal of democratic self-determination. The project was divided into two parts: In the first part, this connection was explained abstractly on the basis of the question of what form of democratic participation the ideal of political freedom requires. The focus here is on an examination of the current variants of republicanism, which assert this connection but leave it largely undefined. This results in a twofold task: the defense of the republican conception of freedom against its liberal and libertarian critics and its further development in the direction of a decidedly democratic conception. In the second part of the project, the “added value” of a republican-democratic conception of political freedom was demonstrated on the basis of the concrete question of the definition, justification and role of civil disobedience. The results were presented in two publications and several lectures at conferences and colloquia.

Valentin Beck

Valentin Beck’s dissertation “Globale Relationen der Verantwortung. Was wir Menschen in extremer Armut moralisch schulden” was completed with the disputation in June 2013 and was awarded the grade “summa cum laude” (reviewers: Prof. Dr. Stefan Gosepath and Prof. Dr. Regina Kreide). It has been published as: Valentin Beck, A Theory of Global Responsibility. Was wir Menschen in extremer Armut schulden, Frankfurt am Main Suhrkamp, 2016). The dissertation is dedicated to analyzing the moral relationship between the better-off and people in extreme poverty, focusing in particular on the focal points i. and ii. of the overarching research project “Normativity in a non-ideal world”. This is because it is concerned both with the justification of substantial norms for the international arena, which can be used as a basis for the attribution of responsibility of the better-off towards people in extreme poverty (cf. i.), as well as with a methodological reflection on the justification of these norms (cf. ii.). Re i: On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the concept of responsibility, which includes a distinction between eight dimensions of responsibility, criteria for the attribution of world poverty responsibility to individual and collective actors in a global context are developed. Basic human rights are identified as ecumenical standards for the assessment of social institutions in the global context and for the attribution of structural responsibility. Re ii: In methodological terms, the core idea of the dissertation is to defend a pluralistic conception of the responsibility for world poverty. The elaborated normative standards are open to a plurality of different moral justifications, to a spectrum of different views on the nature and content of social justice as well as to different culturally shaped worldviews, each of which is informed by different religious traditions and different emphases on the position of the individual in the community.

Christoph Broszies

In his dissertation project, Broszies dealt with constructivism as a method within political philosophy. His project located it systematically and characterized it as the most appropriate method for pluralistic communities. At the same time, the constructivist method was defined more precisely on the basis of the work of J. Rawls, O. O’Neill and A. James: Drawing on these authors, both the status (constructivism as an ‘agnostic’ procedure in relation to the truth value of individual beliefs) and the scope of the method were narrowed down.

Tamara Jugov

Tamara Jugov’s dissertation “Geltungsgründe politischer Gerechtigkeit: Gerechtigkeitspflichten in Kontexten ohne politischen Institutionen” developed a dominance-based practice-dependent concept of justice. Firstly, it dealt with the substantive question of what kind of duties of justice apply in contexts without political institutions, such as failing states or in relation to global negative externalities (thus contributing to research field i). Secondly, the meta-theoretical question was whether, and if so how, duties of justice can be distinguished in principle from other moral duties (thus the central results of the work lie in research field ii). The work was based on the following dilemma: On the one hand, practice-dependent concepts of justice can retain a realist character – but since they understand political institutions as a necessary ground of validity for the existence of justice problems and duties, such theories cannot provide any considerations guided by justice theory at all for the contexts under investigation. In contrast, practice-independent concepts of justice can only evaluate such contexts by assimilating duties of justice to moral duties and thus abandoning the realistic or political core of the concept of social justice. In contrast, a genuinely political and practice-dependent concept of justice was developed in this work, which can also be applied to contexts without political institutions. In a Kantian interpretation of neo-republican and discourse-ethical approaches, the practice of systemic and structural dominance relations was established as a relevant empirical ground of validity that is able to convincingly distinguish the area of duties of justice from other moral grounds for action. The thesis was defended in May 2014 and is published as: Tamara Jugov, Geltungsgründe globaler Gerechtigkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2019 (forthcoming).

Jörg Schaub

In his work within the framework of the research project, Jörg Schaub dealt in particular with research field ii. He devoted himself to working out the elements of a critique of political philosophy as an ideal/non-ideal theory of justice.

Publications:

Stefan Gosepath

Monographs and editorships:
Gosepath, Stefan/Celikates, Robin (2013): Introduction to Political Philosophy, Stuttgart: Reclam.
Gosepath, Stefan/Celikates, Robin (eds.) (2009): Philosophy of morality. Texts from antiquity to the present day Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

Essays:
Gosepath, Stefan (2014): “Ist der Anspruch auf Gerechtigkeit transnationalisierbar? (together with Christian Schemmel), Ulrich Becker, Stephan Leibfried, Peter Masuch, Wolfgang Spellbrink (eds.), Social Law and Social Policy: Foundations and Challenges of the German Welfare State. 60 years of the Federal Social Court , Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag (ESV) 2014, 2 Volumes, Vol. 1, 499-515.
Gosepath, Stefan (2014): “What exactly does equality in education mean?”, in: Kirsten Meyer (ed.): Education, Justice, and the Human Good. Fairness and Equality in the Education System , Oxon/New York: Routledge 2014, 100-112.
Gosepath, Stefan (2013): “Einhegung des Marktes”, in: Falk Bornmüller, Thomas Hoffmann, Arnd Pollmann (eds.), Menschenrechte und Demokratie, Freiburg: Alber, 349-370.
Gosepath, Stefan (2013): “Gleichheit: Begriffsgeschichte und aktuelle Debatten”, in: Sedmak, Clemens (ed.), Equality. The value of non-discrimination, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , 19-31.
Gosepath, Stefan (2013): “Moral aus Interesse und Sanktion? Notes on Michael von Grundherr, Michael Kühler and Frank Brosow”, in: Eva Buddeberg, Achim Vesper (eds.), Morality and sanction. A controversy about the authority of moral norms Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 125-134.
Gosepath, Stefan (2012): “”Öffentliche Gründe”, Kommentar zu Charles Larmore und Simone Chambers im Kolloquium 27: Reason(s) in Politics” (Kolloquiumsleitung: Stefan Gosepath und Rainer Forst), in: Julian Nida-Rümelin (ed.), Proceedings of the XXII German Congress of Philosophy “World of Reasons” Hamburg: Meiner, 1283-1287.
Gosepath, Stefan (2012): “Chancengleichheit”, in: Heinrich Böll Foundation and Vodafone Foundation (eds.), Transmission 6 Between dynamics and equalization. Prospects for social advancement , Vodafone Foundation Germany, 8-33, (online at: https://www.vodafone-stiftung.de/uploads/tx_newsjson/transmission_06_21.pdf)
Gosepath, Stefan (2012): “Politische Verantwortung und rechtliche Zurechnung”, in: Matthias Kaufmann, Joachim Renzikowski (eds.), Zurechnung und Verantwortung, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag (ARSP-Beiheft 134), 17-30.
Gosepath, Stefan (2012): “Gründe bei Julian Nida-Rümelin”, in: Dieter Sturma (ed.), Reason and freedom. On the practical philosophy of Julian Nida-Rümelin , Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 143-156; (with a response by JNR 317-324.)
Gosepath, Stefan (2012): “Zur Verteidigung der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit”, in: Regina Kreide, Claudia Landwehr, Katrin Toens (eds.), Demokratie und Gerechtigkeit in Verteilungskonflikten, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 35-49.
– in Portuguese as “Em defesa da sociedade redistributiva” in: Alessandro Pinzani, Milene Conseso Tonetto (eds.), Teoria Crítica e Justiça Social, Florianópolis: Nefipo (Nefiponline) 2012, 9-28 (translated by Alessandro Pinzani);
– in Spanish as “En defensa de la justicia distributiva”, in: Gustavo Pereira (ed.), Perspectivas críticas de justicia social, Montevideo y Porto Alegre, UdelaR-PUCRS-CAPES, 2013, 47-59.
Gosepath, Stefan (2011): “Lebensqualität” (with Achim Vesper and Rahel Jaeggi), in: Ralf Stöcker, Christian Neuhäuser, Marie-Luise Raters (eds.), Handbuch Angewandte Ethik, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 260-264.
Gosepath, Stefan (2009): “Zum Ursprung der Normativität”, in: Rainer Forst, Martin Hartmann, Rahel Jaeggi, Martin Saar (eds.), Social Philosophy and Criticism. Axel Honneth on his 60th birthday Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 250-268.
Gosepath, Stefan (2009): “Poverty and Responsibility”, in: Elke Mack, Michael Schramm, Stephan Klasen, Thomas Pogge (eds.), Absolute Poverty and Global Justice. Empirical Data – Moral Theories – Initiatives Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate, 113-121.

Other:
Gosepath, Stefan (2010): “Anstrengung und Markt. Der Widerspruch der Leistungsgerechtigkeit”, in: polar 8 (Spring 2010), 73-77 [issue on performance].
Gosepath, Stefan (2010): “Gerechtigkeit über Generationen – geht das?” in: Forschung Frankfurt3/2010, 48-51.
Forst, Rainer; Deitelhoff, Nicole; Menke, Christoph; Siller, Peter; Gosepath, Stefan (2009): “Das aufgelöste Rätsel aller Verfassungen”, Interview, in: Polar, No. 7, Fall 2009, 26-36.
Buchkritik der Deutschen Zeitschrift für Philosophie, with Georg Bertram and Robin Celikates, responsible from issue 1/2009.

Publications by employees:

Beck, Valentin (2016): A theory of global responsibility. What we owe people in extreme poverty Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Beck, Valentin (2013): “Der Menschenrechtsdiskurs und der Vorwurf des moralischen Imperialismus”, in: Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte 2, 24-41.
Beck, Valentin (2013): “How strong are positive duties?” (Review of Corinna Mieth: Positive Pflichten, Berlin: de Gruyter 2012), in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 61 (5-6), 860-864.
Beck, Valentin (2011): “Interkulturelles Zusammenleben”, in: Stöcker, Ralf/Neuhäuser, Christian/Raters, Marie-Luise (eds.): Handbuch Angewandte Ethik, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler 2011.
Beck, Valentin (2010): “Theorizing Fairtrade from a justice-related standpoint”, in: Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric 3, 1-21.
Beck, Valentin (2009): “Interactional and institutional relations of responsibility. Reflections on Fairtrade from a Justice Theory Perspective”, in: InIIS-Working Paper 36.
Broszies, Christoph (2011): “Brock and Justification”, in: Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric 4.
Broszies, Christoph/Hahn, Henning (eds.)(2010): Global Justice. Key texts on the debate between particularism and cosmopolitanism Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Broszies, Christoph (2010): “Assembling Realistic Utopias: New Paths in the Global Justice Debate”, in: Journal of International Political Theory, 6(2), 217-230.
Celikates, Robin (2010): “The Democratization of Democracy. Etienne Balibar on the dialectics of constituent and constituted power”, in: Ulrich Bröckling/Robert Feustel (eds.): Das Politische denken, Bielefeld: transcript, 59-76.
Celikates, Robin (2010): “Habermas: Sprache, Verständigung und sprachliche Gewalt”, in: Hannes Kuch/Steffen Kitty Herrmann (eds.): Philosophien sprachlicher Gewalt, Weilerswist: Velbrück, 272-285.
Celikates, Robin (2010): “Republikanismus zwischen Politik und Recht”, in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 64(1), 111-128.
Celikates, Robin (2010): “Ziviler Ungehorsam und radikale Demokratie – konstituierende vs. konstituierte Macht?”, in: Thomas Bedorf/Kurt Röttgers (eds.): Die Politik und das Politische, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 274-300.
Schaub, Jörg (2012): “The Incompleteness of Ideal Theory”, Res Publica 20/ 4 (2014), 413-439.
Schaub, Jörg (2012): “Politische Theorie als angewandte Moralphilosophie. The Realist Critique”, Journal of Political Theory 3(1), 8-24.
Schaub, Jörg (2012): “Warum es von Idealtheorien unabhängig einer politischen Theorie der Legitimität benötigt”, in: Christopher Daase, Anna Geis and Frank Nullmeier (eds.), Leviathan. Berlin Journal for Social Science (Special Issue): “Der Aufstieg der Legitimitätspolitik. Rechtfertigung und Kritik politisch-ökonomischer Ordnungen”, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 436-451.
Schaub, Jörg (2010): ‘Hat hier jemand gesagt, der Kaiser sei nackt? A defense of Geuss’ critique of Rawls’ ideal-theoretical approach”, in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58(3), 457-477.
Schaub, Jörg (2010): “Ideale und/oder nicht-ideale Theorie – oder weder noch? A literature review on the latest methodological dispute in political philosophy”, in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 64(3), 393-409.