Research

My areas of specialization are social and political philosophy: My particular expertise lies in the normative foundations of social and political criticism (and FRankfurt School Critical Theory in particular), in the history of political thought as well as in theories of recognition, (global) justice, democracy, freedom, power and just war theory.

In my research I am developing a deontological theory of recognition that combines the interdisciplinary aspects of Critical Theory with the vigor and clarity of contemporary analytical moral and political philosophy.

I laid the foundations for this new form of Critical Theory in my first monograph, Empörung und Fortschritt. Grundlagen einer kritischen Theorie der Gesellschaft (Indignation and Progress. Foundations of a Critical Theory of Society). It was published in 2008 and appeared in its second edition in 2011.  In 2009 it won the Best First Book Award of the German Political Science Association (DVPW).

In Indignation and Progress I quite generally argue that, for social criticism to be a fruitful enterprise, it must take aggressive emotions, and in particular feelings of indignation – as recently witnessed, for example, in the “Arab Spring” – much more seriously than has been done so far. Social criticism should be understood as a reflection on the values and norms that feelings of indignation express, as well as on the situations and institutions to which they react. My book pursues the ambitious goal of showing that the structure of indignation – correctly understood – holds the key to normative criteria of moral and political progress. Because adequate feelings of indignation react to a lack of what I call “deontological recognition” – of being recognized as having the normative status one deserves – the theory developed in this study can decipher certain forms of indignation as expressing justified demands for social and political progress.

In my current book project I pursue this account further and develop a specifically recognitional account of just war theory.