Crítica e Justificação em Rainer Forst

This paper analyzes the main features of the on going project of a critical theory of politics elaborated by Rainer Forst. After identifying Forst’s position in the context of the critical theory, I introduce his idea of “contexts of justification”. Then, based on his more recent writings, I intend to show how a critical theory of society based on “critical relations of justification” is strictly linked to questions of normative political philosophy. Finally, in order to evaluate his theory in a critical way, I raise some issues related to the “constructivist” method assumed by the author and point out some difficulties of grounding a critique of society in a constructivist theory which, it seems, is grounded in a “moral” primacy.