Critical theory and post-Marx justice

alienation and autonomy in Rainer Forst’s critical theory of justice

Abstract

: This article analyses Rainer Forst's updating and extension of the Marxian argument on alienation in his most recent book, Normativity and Power (2017), to propose a post-Marx theory of justice based on a notion of ‘political alienation’. In dialogue with the updating of the concept of alienation proposed by Rahel Jaeggi (2014), we seek to reflect on the meanings of Forst's proposal for normative theories of justice, emphasising the Marxist debate and the critical theory of justice. It concludes by pointing out that the idea of ‘political alienation’ was underlying Rainer Forst's argument in texts prior to the one analysed;

highlighting the implications of his proposal for the debate on justice; and finally, indicating some questions about the sociological challenges of thinking about justice from a political perspective of alienation, which arise for the constitution of a sociology of the critique of orders and relations of justification.