Fabian Freyenhagen

Theodor W. Adorno inspired much of Germany’s 1960s student movement, but he came increasingly into conflict with this movement about the practical implications of his critical theory. Others – including his friend and colleague Herbert Marcuse – also accused Adorno of a quietism that is politically objectionable and in contradiction with his own theory. In this article, I recon- struct, and partially defend, Adorno’s views on theory and (political) praxis in Germany’s 1960s in 11 theses. His often attacked and maligned stance during the 1960s is based on his analysis of these historical circumstances. Put provocatively, his stance consists in the view that people in the 1960s have tried to change the world, in various ways; the point – at that time – was to interpret it.

In this paper, I will address a question that has long overshadowed T.W. Adorno?s critical theory, namely, the question of whether or not it is possible to account for normativity within his negativistic philosophy. I believe that we can answer this question in the affirmative, but in this paper my aim will be more limited. I will clarify the problem and lay out the response strategies that are open to those hoping to defend Adorno?s theory. And I will argue that the problem cannot be dismissed as easily as is sometimes suggested, namely, by those who claim that Adorno?s theory is not normative.

Consider the following objection of Bennett to Kant: The least swallowable part of Kant's whole theory of freedom is the claim that the causality of freedom is not in time. This follows from Kant's doctrine that time is an appearance, and anyway the theory of freedom needs it: it is because the noumenal cause of an event is not in time, and thus is not itself an event, that it escapes the causality of nature. Kant is unembarrassed: ‘Inasmuch as it is noumenon, nothing happens in it; there can be no change requiring dynamical determination in time, and therefore no causal dependence upon appearances … No action begins in this active being itself; but we may yet quite correctly say that the active being of itself begins its effects in the sensible world’ [KrV, A541=B569]. That is indefensible. Something in which ‘nothing happens’ cannot be ‘active’ or ‘begin’ a train of events

Mental capacity and autonomy are often understood to be normatively neutral? the only values or other norms they may presuppose are those the assessed person does or would accept. We show how mental disorder threatens normatively neutral accounts of autonomy. These accounts produce false positives, particularly in the case of disorders that affect evaluative abilities. Two normatively neutral strategies for handling autonomy-undermining disorder are explored and rejected: a blanket exclusion of mental disorder, and functional tests requiring consistency, expression of identity, reflective non-alienation or lack of compulsion. Finally, we suggest ways in which substantivist alternatives to neutrality can be made more promising through increased transparency, democratic contestability of conditions for capacity and autonomy, and a historically sensitive caution concerning restrictions of liberty.

In this article, I argue that autonomy has to be conceived substantively in order to serve as the qualifying condition for receiving the full set of individual liberal rights. I show that the common distinction between content‐neutral and substantive accounts of autonomy is riddled with confusion and ambiguities, and provide a clear alternative taxonomy. At least insofar as we are concerned with liberal settings, the real question is whether or not the value and norm implied by an account of autonomy are acceptable to reasonable people, not whether these accounts are content‐neutral, procedural or input‐focused. Finally, I demonstrate how substantive constraints are compatible with, or even implied in, the notion of autonomy at play in political liberalism. Overall, I present a normative reconstruction, clarification, and internal critique of liberalism, drawing on case law and statutes from England and Wales.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 has put the assessment of mental capacity for decision-making at the forefront of psychiatric practice. This capacity is commonly linked within philosophy to autonomy, that is, to the idea, or ideal, of self-government. However, philosophers disagree deeply about what constitutes autonomy. This contribution brings out how the competing conceptions of autonomy would play out in psychiatric practice, taking anorexia nervosa as a test case. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

There is a perennial problem affecting Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy: his theory seems to lack the resources to account for his normative claims. James Gordon Finlayson has offered an intriguing solution. He argues that within Adorno’s philosophy it is possible to access a kind of good that is suitable as a normative basis for his ethics: the good involved in the experiences of trying to have insights into the ineffable. In this paper, I show that this proposal is unsuitable both (1) as a normative basis of Adorno’s ethics; and also (2) for explaining how it is possible for people to act according to this ethics. I outline an alternative solution that relies only on Adorno’s conception of the bad and defend it against objections.

© 2015 The Authors. Journal of Applied Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Philosophy. In this article, I argue that autonomy has to be conceived substantively in order to serve as the qualifying condition for receiving the full set of individual liberal rights. I show that the common distinction between content-neutral and substantive accounts of autonomy is riddled with confusion and ambiguities, and provide a clear alternative taxonomy. At least insofar as we are concerned with liberal settings, the real question is whether or not the value and norm implied by an account of autonomy are acceptable to reasonable people, not whether these accounts are content-neutral, procedural or input-focused. Finally, I demonstrate how substantive constraints are compatible with, or even implied in, the notion of autonomy at play in political liberalism. Overall, I present a normative reconstruction, clarification, and internal critique of liberalism, drawing on case law and statutes from England and Wales.

Adorno notoriously asserted that there is no 'right' life in our current social world. This assertion has contributed to the widespread perception that his philosophy has no practical import or coherent ethics, and he is often accused of being too negative. Fabian Freyenhagen reconstructs and defends Adorno's practical philosophy in response to these charges. He argues that Adorno's deep pessimism about the contemporary social world is coupled with a strong optimism about human potential, and that this optimism explains his negative views about the social world, and his demand that we resist and change it. He shows that Adorno holds a substantive ethics, albeit one that is minimalist and based on a pluralist conception of the bad - a guide for living less wrongly. His incisive study does much to advance our understanding of Adorno, and is also an important intervention into current debates in moral philosophy.