When freedom is not enough

This idea is elaborated in his The Law of Freedom (Codice Editions, 2015), a vast and ambitious work in which the German philosopher rereads modernity precisely as an unfinished history of freedom. The starting point is a distinction between three forms of freedom: negative freedom, reflexive freedom and social freedom. The first, as we have seen, concerns the absence of external interference and coercion. It is that freedom that Isaiah Berlin called 'negative freedom' (see Mind the Economomy of 14/01/2024). The second introduces a further element. It is not enough, in fact, to call oneself free, to be able to choose. It is necessary for the choice to be truly mine, to be able to reflect on one's own ends, to evaluate them, to take them on as an expression of one's own autonomous will. Here, freedom is no longer just protection from the outside, but self-determination. The autonomy of which Rousseau speaks, the 'positive freedom' as Berlin called it. This second idea is also decisive. It reminds us that one can be formally free from external conditioning and yet inwardly dependent. Subjugated by induced desires, by social expectations, by imposed models of success, by internalised fears, by forms of conformism that do not overtly constrain but silently orientate. A society can leave individuals with many options and, at the same time, making it almost impossible to question the meaning of those options can multiply choices and empty the capacity to choose.

But not even this second instance of freedom is, for Honneth, sufficient. Indeed, it risks remaining focused on the subject who withdraws from the world in order to judge its own ends. It is a necessary moment, certainly, because we must be able to separate ourselves from the expectations that surround us and risk crushing us. But a freedom made only of distance runs the risk of turning into permanent suspension. If every constraint is experienced as a threat, every belonging as a danger, every institution as possible domination, then the subject remains free only in the gesture of withdrawal. It can withdraw, but it does not necessarily succeed in realising itself.

The third instance, the originally Honnetian instance, is that of social freedom that arises precisely from this insufficiency. Full freedom, the German philosopher argues, emerges not only and not so much when we are left alone, nor when we merely reflect on ourselves, but when we participate in practices in which our self-realisation is intertwined with that of others. Here, freedom is not the opposite of connection, but its most accomplished form. It is not the absence of relationship, but an authentic, undeformed relationship. It is not so much independence as recognised and accepted mutual dependence. Honneth says, echoing Hegel, that to be free is to be 'at oneself in the other'. Not to lose oneself in the other, not to be absorbed by the group, not to sacrifice the individual to the community, but to find in the relationship with the other a necessary condition of one's own fulfilment.

This is the decisive turning point. In negative freedom, the other is first and foremost the limit of my freedom. In social freedom, the other becomes a determining condition. Not because I must depend on him, but because many of the ends that give meaning to my life can only be realised through shared practices. Friendship, love, family, work, the market, democracy are all experiences that possess a profoundly relational nature. They cannot be understood as mere sums of individual choices. A friendship in which one alone is fulfilled at the expense of the other is not true friendship. A family in which some are free because others remain invisible is not a community of recognition. A market in which one party can impose conditions that prevent the other from developing skills, voice and dignity is not a place of freedom, even if formally exchanges take place on a voluntary basis. A democracy in which citizens are left alone in the face of opaque powers, deep inequalities and arbitrary choices cannot be considered a fully free democracy.

In this perspective, institutions change meaning. They are not merely external constraints on individual choices. They are not merely bureaucratic apparatuses, rules, procedures, neutral frames. They are stabilised practices in which we learn or fail to learn to recognise each other as subjects capable of loving, choosing, contributing, deliberating and cooperating. It is no coincidence that Honneth speaks in this regard of 'democratic ethics'. A just society is not only made up of individual rights, nor only of moral principles, but of living institutions that make mutual freedom concrete and practicable.

Here the difference between an abstract theory of justice and a social theory of freedom becomes clear. A normative theory may ask what principles should govern a just society. Honneth, on the other hand, taking a descriptive perspective, asks where, in contemporary societies, promises of freedom and recognition are already present and where these promises are instead being betrayed or distorted. The critique does not come from outside but arises from within our own institutions. Law promises equal respect, but can produce real exclusion. The market promises cooperation through exchange, but can generate dependency, inequality and humiliation. Democracy promises participation, but can reduce citizens to powerless, frustrated and resentful spectators. Personal relationships promise care and reciprocity, but can all too easily become sites of domination, oppression and suffering.

Critical theory, then, must not merely denounce the fact that society does not live up to an external ideal. It must show that it does not live up to its own promises. Modernity is not only described by Honneth as the place of alienation and domination. On the contrary, it contains real achievements. Subjective rights, moral autonomy, pluralism, romantic love, legal equality, democratic participation and many more. But social critics do not hide the fact that many of these achievements still remain fragile. For they may survive as utterances while disappearing as experience.

Let us think of consumer freedom. In contemporary societies, it is often presented as one of the most immediate forms of individual freedom. Choosing between goods, lifestyles, experiences, platforms, services, even identities. The consumer is sovereign, it is said, because he can select, compare and choose. But this freedom is only social if it is embedded in a market order that respects conditions of reciprocity and transparency, dignity and sustainability. If, on the other hand, the choices appear only superficially free, but at bottom are oriented by systematic manipulation, by information asymmetries or by invisible forms of exploitation, then freedom of consumption becomes a freedom only of facade.

The same applies to labour, which we will analyse in depth in the next Mind the Economy. Here too, formal freedom can coexist with social conditions that undermine it at the root. A contract can be legally voluntary and yet fit into power relations so unbalanced that choice is almost compulsory. An organisation can celebrate autonomy, creativity and responsibility, yet transform them into new forms of oppression. A worker can be called a 'collaborator', a 'talent', a 'resource', and yet have no say over the purpose, pace or evaluation criteria of his or her work. This is where social freedom shows its full critical force. It is not enough to ask whether someone has formally consented. One must ask whether the conditions of the relationship really allow for a mutual realisation in freedom.

But the same logic applies to our old and increasingly sick democracies. They can guarantee the right to vote, freedom of expression and electoral competition and yet continue to leave citizens in a state of total powerlessness. There can be formally democratic procedures without any real experience of democratic life. There can be opinions that are not heard and participation that fails to make an impact, as well as information that does not facilitate understanding and indignation that fails to organise itself to change things.

For Honneth, democracy is not just a method of collective decision-making. Rather, it is a form of cooperation in which citizens must be able to perceive themselves as co-authors of the social order in which they live. If political institutions do not allow for this experience, democratic freedom thins out. Formal law remains, but we lose substance.

Social freedom, therefore, is not a consolatory formula. It does not say that we are free because we live together. It requires just institutions, cooperative practices, non-humiliating relationships, regulated markets and an accessible public sphere, as well as adequate material conditions and the effective exercise of rights. It requires, above all, that freedom is not separated from its social conditions.

Social freedom is not an addition to individual freedom. It is its fulfilment. It does not come later, as a community corrective. It lies within freedom itself, because no individual can become free alone. The point is not to oppose the self to the we, nor to sacrifice one to the other. It is to understand that the self and the we are mutually constituted. Without autonomous individuals, the we becomes oppression. Without common institutions, the 'I' becomes pure abstraction. Freedom, for Honneth, dwells precisely in this tension. It is neither fusion nor separation. It is reciprocity.

One can then understand why the third step of recognition theory necessarily leads to institutions. The experience of injury and injustice shows us the devastating effects of misrecognition. Conflict analysis shows us how that lack can become a public demand. Social freedom shows us what form a society capable of responding to that demand should take. It is not enough to proclaim rights or multiply the possibilities of choice. It is necessary to build social worlds in which individuals can recognise themselves as free because they participate in the freedom of others.

The promise of justice, then, is not that of a society without ties, without dependencies, without vulnerability. It is, on the contrary, that of a society in which dependencies do not become domination, ties do not become prisons, institutions do not become blind apparatuses, the market does not bring humiliation, democracy does not become pure procedure. A just society is not one in which each person is left alone to exercise his or her private freedom, but one in which each person's freedom finds its deepest condition of existence in relationships with others.

This is perhaps Honneth's most demanding lesson. Freedom is not enough for itself because none of us is enough for ourselves. We are not free before others, against others or in spite of others. We become so with others, within relationships that recognise us, within institutions that enable us. When we succeed in transforming mutual dependence into genuine cooperation.