Abstract:
This paper aims to analyze Axel Honneth’s contributions to the current debate on theories of justice, among which the main one is the search for normative principles embedded in social reality. In his book, Freedom’s right, the author points out freedom as the great modern value. The medium of justice would be a social-type freedom which would be expressed in institutions linked to personal relationships, the marketplace and the political world. Considering the gap between the normative principles of justice pointed out by the author and social reality, this paper proposes to put into discussion the potentialities and limits of the normative reconstruction itself as an instrument for analysis of the social reality, specifically addressing the labor market, in order to contribute to the debate on the possibilities of networking the shared standard and the emergence of values in process of institutionalization.
Keywords:
Normative reconstruction; Social freedom; Empirical research; Labor market; Gray zone